It is not the first time that the architecture studio Llosa Cortegana Arquitectos has been commissioned to build a house in this paradisiacal municipality, Paracas, located on the west coast of Peru. Building a new home means going one step further, learning from what has already been built and trying to sublimate it.

It was not easy to go back to Paracas, known for its beaches and for being the gateway to the Ballestas, virgin islands inhabited by an extraordinary fauna made up of sea lions, pelicans and Humboldt penguins. The area is home to the Paracas National Reserve, with an orography that brings together the desert, the ocean, islands and the Paracas peninsula.

With this context, it is easy to understand the challenges assumed and the intentions raised to build this house, a necklace of habitable basins stretched out on the shore.
Llosa Cortegana Arquitectos explain their house as an exercise to understand the habits of the family that inhabits it and at the same time understand the surrounding nature as another element of construction, "This house wants to inhabit the wind in silence"

They plan the house through the construction of a series or three-dimensional repetition of archetypal architectural elements, such as the beam, the pillar, the slab and the wall, managing them at different scales and according to their functions. A set of elements that through a mosaic of solids and voids allows them to manage the spaces of the house and hybridize with the wind.

An interesting and intimate "architectural promenade" that along 90 meters plays with time and reveals its spaces, its programmatic corners, its spatial hybridizations, its play of light and shadow, as well as the close visions of the garden in front of us. the openings of the gaze towards the horizon.

«The house filters the sun, the wind, the parachute and the gaze, it is a mediation between its inhabitants and the environment of the bay that is not enough, but always enigmatic.»


Paracas III house by Llosa Cortegana Arquitectos. Photograph by Renzo Rebagliati.


Paracas III house by Llosa Cortegana Arquitectos. Photograph by Renzo Rebagliati.
 

Project description by Llosa Cortegana Arquitectos


El fruto es el resumen del árbol,
el pájaro es el resumen del aire,
la sangre es el resumen del hombre,
el ser es el resumen de la nada.
La metafísica del viento
se notifica de todos los resúmenes
y del túnel que excavan las palabras
por debajo de todos los resúmenes.
Porque la palabra no es el grito,
sino recibimiento o despedida.
La palabra es el resumen del silencio,
del silencio, que es resumen de todo.

Roberto Juarroz

This house wants to inhabit the wind in silence, and in that effort it intertwines the void that its trace generates, repeating the experience until it becomes the family's habits.

In the repetition of architectural elements that are articulated and intertwined to manage the space, the architectural elements display their scales and functions. The beam, the pillar, the slabs and the wall configure the spatial sequence of the house, they are elements that show their presence in their nakedness, building its tangible and architectural reality.

It is a fabric that organizes domestic spaces in a three-dimensional way, intertwining the rooms through voids that are articulated from a long route, as if expanding their size and filtering the wind.

They are architectural syntheses that define an enlarged coverage that blends with the wall, cutting it to allow a diagonal view, looking through its own mass.

Factory imaginaries of a trade that needs zenith light, from where vertical elements are repeated that filter the light and allow us to concentrate.

The plot of the house covers 90 meters to reveal its spaces and programmatic corners that intersect and fit from its coverage.


Paracas III house by Llosa Cortegana Arquitectos. Photograph by Renzo Rebagliati.

There is silence between the rooms, which, separated from the social environments, lose themselves in the tranquillity of the garden that welcomes them and the sky that contains them.

The walk along the path that is marked by a broken and perforated cover always delimits us in shadow the possibility of the most intimate and nocturnal corners. Experiences intertwine in the definition of the patio, of the portico that frames our gaze towards the desert garden, establishing the appropriate scale for rest.

Both the workshop and the social space place lines of natural light from the zenith on their coverage, thus prolonging the afternoon in Paracas.

The threshold between the interior garden and the immensity of the bay allows us to alter the perception of the sky so that the slits generate shadows that direct the gaze towards the horizon.

The unique materiality of the house explores space, scale, route and coverage, the shadow accompanies the house at all times and defines the passage of time.


Paracas III house by Llosa Cortegana Arquitectos. Photograph by Renzo Rebagliati.

There is at all times a background architectural experience, which serves to contain the things, experiences and affections of the family, this framework unfolds from its architectural pieces, as if each element were irreplaceable.

This project tries to link notes in relation to the synthesis of other design experiences, which are added from other representations to our design practice, affiliations that converse with architecture from the architectural point of view.

They are processes that take over, they are never an origin or an end, they permanently inhabit the centre of the process, from ideas in relation to fragments, intuitions that convert their presence from matter and form. The house filters the sun, the wind, the parachute and the gaze, it is a mediation between its inhabitants and the bay's environment that is not enough, but always enigmatic.

More information

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Architects
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Llosa Cortegana Arquitectos. Lead architects.- Arq. Patricia Llosa, Arq. Rodolfo Cortegana.
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Design team
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Julio Malpartida, Pedro Luna, Luis Arana.
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Dates
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2022.
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Location
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Paracas, Pisco - Ica, Peru.
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Photography
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Llosa cortegana Arquitectos. Despite having studied at the same university, Patricia Llosa and Rodolfo Cortegana did not get to know each other until 2001 when they were called to take part in the same competition. They later co-participated in some others, as a result of the harmony that they found in their design methodology from the first moment, as well as being invited to teach in the same design workshop at the Faculty of Architecture of the Catholic University. As a consequence of such experiences, they partnered to found their own practice in 2005, under the name 'Llosa cortegana Architects'.

Patricia Llosa is an architect from Ricardo Palma University. She did the Master 'Architecture, Criticism and Projects' at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain (1999). She has participated in various courses, conferences and workshops on teaching and creating projects.

Rodolfo Cortegana is an architect from Ricardo Palma University, where he received the award for the best thesis supported by the Museum of Contemporary Art. He did a master's in Museology at the University of Ricardo Palma. He also conducted research on Public space and its interaction with the Climate', receiving a grant from the Belgian government.
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Published on: February 21, 2023
Cite: "Inhabit the wind in silence. Paracas III house by Llosa Cortegana Arquitectos" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/inhabit-wind-silence-paracas-iii-house-llosa-cortegana-arquitectos> ISSN 1139-6415
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