Antilhue House

by Correa Gelfenstein

© Correa Gelfestein

© Correa Gelfestein

The commission consists on the renovation of an 80’s colonial house in Santa Maria de Manquehue, on a 25mx45m site facing the mountains, with the Manquehue hill to the north.

The owners asked for independent rooms for three college students and the youngest son. Common spaces (both interior and exterior) were a priority to put emphasis on family life. The client’s taste for art and decoration has to be incorporated on the spaces, and also their permanent exhibition. For this, special niches were designed inside the walls, with careful lighting to display the objects, along with special care on the finishes of the whole project.

Exteriors should be expressive and hermetic through a contemporary language, and at the same time, mediate the access from the public part into the interior of the house. This interior-exterior relation is synthesized on a double height entrance hall, connected to a stone yard and a quiet water pool. To the backyard, the house unfolds massive formal elements, such as cantilevered beams, terraces and the exterior stair, which conforms several intermediate spaces. The formal language exposes the noble materials and the careful design. Giving depth to the interior-intermediate-exterior sequence extends the limit of the façade.

The house is built with exposed concrete with a brick plating, with air Chambers on the walls to improve isolation. These chambers were filled with Eraclit, expanded polystyrene, steel mesh and mortar. Cross ventilation between rooms and levels were considered for summer refreshment.