CASA RINCONADA
Set within a landscape of gated residential developments that evoke the imagery of the “garden city”, where visual openness and continuous green spaces promise an idyllic domestic life, this house challenges that ideal through an architecture that prioritises the construction of privacy.
Drawing from the site’s climatic conditions — high temperatures and intense solar radiation — the project adopts a strategy of material and constructive synthesis. Concrete masonry block is established as the fundamental element of the work. This decision, embraced as a self-imposed constraint, defines not only the materiality of the building but also its compositional order: a single system supports structural loads, delineates spaces, and regulates the relationship with the surroundings.
In contrast to the exposure implicit in the suburban model, the wall becomes a habitable infrastructure that protects and contains, establishing precise boundaries between the public and private realms.
The continuity and thickness of the envelope take advantage of the material’s thermal mass to moderate climatic fluctuations, delaying heat gain and generating more stable interior conditions. In this way, the material works in concert with the climate, reducing dependence on artificial systems while reinforcing an introspective mode of dwelling.
The morphology of the volume responds directly to the organisational scheme of the house. The elevated portion accommodates the children’s bedrooms on the first floor and, above them, the main bedroom on the second floor, the only room that engages the landscape from that height. At the opposite end of the volume are the service spaces and the elements that define the kitchen. Between these two poles unfolds the social core of the house.
A screen of perforated concrete blocks completes the system, filtering light, views, and ventilation. Rather than denying the exterior, it distances and mediates it, providing shade and privacy.
Thus, the material not only responds to environmental and structural imperatives, but also actively contributes to the construction of a domestic intimacy that stands in contrast to the idealised transparency of the surrounding landscape.
