As a practice, we firmly believe in the importance of a profound analysis of all the factors that surround each new project we face. In that sense, we understand inspiration as a creative interpretation of the client’s requirements and the particular conditions of the site. Undoubtedly, this creative response is highly conditioned by our understanding of dwelling and modes of inhabiting a living space; a striving to create unexpected conditions; and of course, our aesthetic preferences and inclinations. 

In the case of Casa Morla, where the brief called for maximizing the efficiency of the space, the driving force behind the layout of the program was compacting and overlaying the uses, as well as avoiding “losing” any space to circulation. It’s through this compaction that the kitchen cabinets come to act as the stair ledge and the lower level is granted with an interstice that doubles as a playroom. 

As for the formal and volumetric composition, these are both a direct product of the interpretation of the site’s limitations as to the allowed building surface, the views to the ocean and the harsh climate conditions. It’s through the interplay of these factors that the house’s irregular floor plan, its antithetical facades and the footbridge came to be. And even though it wasn’t a starting point for the design, the project took on a shape of a “land boat” of sorts, overlooking the sea. As a result, and to our contentment, it has come to form a part of the collective imagery of its neighbours and is known by the nickname “Black Pearl”.

In order to gain the best views from the house’s main areas, we opted to locate those on what’s formally the second floor and it only felt logical that one could enter the house at the same level. By leveraging the natural slope of the terrain to the house’s formal advantage, the prominent footbridge came to serve as a promenade and the house’s main access.

Lastly, the profound understanding of the local climate conditions allowed us to explore the creative expression of the house’s façades all the while reducing to the maximum its energetic consumption.

At the northern and the eastern faces, where we sought to soak up the morning sun and the views to the ocean, the house’s structural elements become protagonists in the figurative expression. On the other hand, the house becomes inwardly oriented and rather abstract in expression to the south and the west in order to shield away from the harsh winds and the afternoon bothersome glare.

As for the overall aesthetics, we aimed at homogenizing the visual and the material expression of the house’s exterior with its interior. A rather reduced material palette was applied to achieve this unity and darkened pine wood was used for the structure as well as for the cladding. This way, once inside the house, the architecture visually withdraws to the backdrop and allows the outside views and nature to take the centre stage.

Matanzas, once a small settlement with little tourist interest, came into the spotlight and became a Mecca of sorts for the water sports in a matter of a decade. Along with its popularity grew the demand for vacation homes in the area so in a rather short span of time the local workforce turned from earning a living from the sea and agriculture, to the construction work. And although construction has largely been professionalized over the last years, pine timber and pine cladding are still the material the local workers handle with most confidence. The entire project was based off of this premise and for the same reason the project’s aesthetics is rather raw and unpolished.

As foreign architects (we’re Serbian and Spanish), once we started practicing in Chile our vision and architectural expression were slowly re-molded by the local understanding of the practice that radically differs to the one we brought from our respective backgrounds. The solidity we believed was inherent to it and the construction methods we were accustomed to, have been slowly reshaped to fit the local conditions and now form an integral part of how we practice architecture.