CRISTOBAL PALMA

OBJETIVO

The fact that real need or more conventional ways of living are taken care by the “first residence”, was an opportunity to explore a radical erasure of clichés. Let’s put it this way: if during the week a guy has to wear a tie, it is very likely that during weekends he allows himself to wear shorts and walk barefoot. So, why not look at the weekend house as the ultimately retreat where people can allow themselves to go back to a more essential living? We chose to move backwards towards the archaic, not as a nostalgic escape but as a natural filter against the clichés of innovation. In an era where the hunger for novelty is threatening architecture to become immediately obsolete, we looked for timelessness.

CONTEXTO

Historically, private houses, particularly in Modernism, have been a way to push the boundaries of the discipline. It’s a combination of having just one person to convince about bold moves and a size that makes technical experimentation feasible. We became interested in this commission because it had two extra components that are normally considered a bad sign for good architecture: the client was a developer and it was a week-end house, the ultimate banality.
The great thing about being a real estate operation was that it had no client to convince. We accepted this project on the condition that it will be only us defining in which direction to push the boundaries. We fully accepted though, the constraints from the developer: a built area of 250m2, a program of 4 bedrooms, with their bathrooms and a budget of $2,000 dollars per square meter.