Trusses salvaged from an earthquake-broken barn assistance the roof of this contemporary glass-walled summer season cottage on the shores of one particular of Chile’s greatest lakes .
Brothers Carlos Ignacio Cruz Elton and Alberto Cruz Elton of Santiago firm Estudio Valdés Arquitectos made the constructing as a holiday retreat for their households in a forest that extends along the edge of Lake Ranco.
The brothers needed to make use of the remnants of a huge barn they had purchased with two friends in the Aculeo Lagoon region, which was badly affected by an earthquake in 2010.
For the duration of the earthquake, the barn’s adobe walls had entirely disintegrated and the owner, who was uninterested in reconstructing them, determined to sell the building to the architects.
Doors and sections of the barn’s vast roof framework have been salvaged for use in the summerhouse, whilst the rest of the trusses were incorporated into projects undertaken by the other purchasers, like a barbecue for a loved ones in Santiago and a hotel terrace in the Colchagua Valley.
The brothers produced a new framework from local timber to assistance the authentic polar wood trusses and utilized the rest of the wood from the barn for cladding during the undertaking.
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“The architects and owners of the home gave worth to the wood they identified in the old barn at Aculeo Lake and were inspired by the elegance of the noble material that had obtained an old look in excess of time,” Isabel de La Fuente from Estudio Valdés Arquitectos informed Dezeen.
To make certain the concentrate of the building is on the standard timber roof, the architects designed a minimal supporting construction with pillars positioned at three-metre intervals about the perimeter.
The trusses span the whole width of the developing, which means that no internal columns are essential and facilitating the creation of a fully open-plan interior.
Massive windows were inserted into the openings among the pillars to make the major living areas transparent. The thermally insulated glazing offers views straight by way of to the forest on either side, even though making sure the internal space is sealed and warm.
“The principal high quality the property wished to promote was its place in the middle of the forest,” De La Fuente extra, “so the creating intends to recreate the experience of currently being in the forest, but also being sheltered.”
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The glass-walled living spot is connected by complete-height doors at 1 finish to a terrace, which is sheltered beneath an extended segment of the weighty roof. A central unit containing a hearth and a tv separates the lounge from the dining spot.
Towards the rear of the constructing, the bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchen and services spaces are arranged in a corner. A sound materiality differentiates the far more personal functions of these rooms from the transparent communal regions.
Timber recovered from the unique barn clads surfaces inside the rooms, lending them a rustic top quality that evokes the character of the previous creating.
As De La Fuente pointed out, striking a stability in between the building’s traditional and present day elements was a essential objective of the venture: “The challenge was to present honestly the source of the supplies, letting the outdated search previous, the new seem new, and combining elements by means of their veracity, this kind of as the modern day and minimalistic glass windows with the rustic and old trusses.”
Other examples of unused agricultural buildings provided a new lease of life consist of a derelict cattle shed in Slovenia that was converted into an Alpine cabin and a 19th century barn in Germany that is now a vacation house and guest house.
Photography is by Felipe Díaz Contardo.
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