R1 House sits atop a hillside in Punta Negra, in a position defined by the Pacific horizon. In an almost empty landscape, climate and terrain were the only notions from which the design could draw. The project therefore arises from a synthesis exercise: a single-family dwelling that organizes its domestic program through two diagonally opposed volumes, joined by a cross-shaped circulation.

This intersecting path defines four quadrants in plan, each responding to its own climatic and programmatic conditions. To the southeast, a three-story volume contains the night program, lifted above a flexible basement. To the northwest, a compact single-story body concentrates the service areas. Between them, the voids become home: to the northeast, a sheltered entrance; to the southwest, an open living. A single slab stretches between both volumes like an inhabitable bridge, covering the daytime spaces below and supporting a private terrace above... READ MORE

The remaining structure is reduced to the essential: four walls that delineate the roofed areas, a stone gabion framing the terrace, a diagonal plate that guides the gaze from the social space, and a stair —both structural and sculptural— whose zigzagging stringer carries the second floor... READ MORE

Towards the sea, the Sol House opens; towards the hillside, it protects itself. Sea breezes move through the interior, winter sunlight enters in a controlled manner, and the light shifts across neutral walls that change tone over the course of the day. Each gesture multiplies and orders the ways of inhabiting: from the intimate to the permeable, from mass to void, from shelter to openness.