The Tiny House project (2022) arises from the commission to propose a small neighborhood in the commune of Lo Barnechea (Santiago), which would bear the name of Pueblo la Dehesa. Under a contemporary and sustainable eaves, it was asked to design a small town made up of three types of prefabricated and small-to-medium- scale houses. The Type A house, of 24.5 m2, includes a bedroom and a bathroom, the second Type B house, of 49 m2, includes two rooms and a single bathroom. Finally, the Type C house, of 63 m2, consisted of including two bedrooms and two bathrooms. The three typologies included a kitchen, a dining room and a living room.
The project considered an organic assembly to form sets of 12 units, to finally achieve 600 modules. This totality was designed to achieve the inclusion of small services within the neighborhood, such as cafes, bakeries, gourmet stores, among others. Its purpose was to form a cluster system in the manner of a pedestrian densified town that is immersed in a park open to the mountains and the Andean foothills.
For this reason, we saw it as essential to understand these units as a pixel within a larger system (considering the final goal of 600 pieces). In order to respond to this requirement, it became necessary to understand the complex as a whole, giving rise to generating an organic urbanization.
In the first place, it sought to move away from regular urbanization designs that do not allow the unfolding of life and meeting places. It is here where the intention of Cazú Zegers appears and his study to generate an organic urbanization, where the design concept was characterized by observing the behavior of a dense forest. This finally led to experiencing the concept of botanical shyness, which refers to the ability of trees to detect the adjacent tree, so they avoid bumping into each other, generating small alleyways between them. This, in turn, made it possible to design and plan how each piece is located in the place, generating groups with their small pedestrian passageways. Citing the botanical shyness, these units were grouped in the territory, arming the small town through this system of foliage.
The main material worked was clear pine wood on the outside and iron in the case of
some elements. One of the architectural inventions that stands out from this project
is the strategic prefabrication work to solve the three modular typologies. In turn,
another of these inventions was the steel staircase, worked and inspired by Japanese
origami. This defined that a piece of steel was manipulated like a sheet of paper,
which gives the project a sculptural element. On the other hand, the doors were
worked in an invisible way, avoiding incorporating a frame to give the inhabitant a
feeling of wide space within the module. This same strategy also allowed for a clean
and modular result of the houses when viewed from the outside, which is also
displayed on the terraces that project the internal space. The interior design proposal aimed to highlight spaces for the unfolding of life, incorporating elements that supported a greater sensation of luminosity and spaciousness.
The interior design work of the house was in charge of Zegers and Figueroa, and the materialization of Furniture was carried out by Bontempo. The kitchen and bathroom fixtures are from MK, while the construction of the modular home was carried out by RCM Modular.
Team:
Architects: Cazú Zegers
Photographer: Marcos Zegers
