2022
MCHAP
Casa 9x9
Oficina de Arquitectura X
Asuncion, Central, Paraguay
January 2023
AUTOR PRINCIPAL
Felipe Silvestre ramirez Ilculese (Designer and structural engineer), Nicole Jaquet (Designer)
AUTOR CONTRIBUYENTE
CLIENTE
Alejandro Dominguez
FOTÓGRAFO
Leonardo Mendez
OBJETIVO
Build a 3-bedroom house that allows an open floor plan with a garden at a price well below the market price at which the house is built. On this basis, we generate an operation that uses reason to generate a space that excites with analytical criteria.
Solution: Deductive logical method. Premise 1 - Any transformation of the shape generates an increase in surface area. Premise 2 - The appropriate shapes between party walls are right-angle figures. Conclusion - The optimal shape is a pure prism with a rectangular base.
Mathematical method: Area = X.Y Y = A/X // Perimeter = 2X + 2Y P = 2X + 2A/X // F(x) = 2X + 2A/X We differentiate the perimeter function with respect to X and set it equal to 0 F'(x) = 2 - 2A/X^2 F'(x) = 0 0 = 2 - 2A/X^2 0 = 1 - A/X^2 X^2 = A X = √A // If X = √A and Y = A/X then Y = A/√A Y = √A Y = X
Conclusion: The maximum area with the smallest perimeter is a rectangle with equal sides.
A pure prism with a square base is projected onto a foundation slab that functions as both structure and floor. Geometric figures are inscribed in the floor plan within the prism, pivoting on a central pillar that articulates the elements and orders the space. The atmosphere is created by a brick umbrella through the careful and sublime handling of light.
CONTEXTO
The house is located in Asunción in the Tacumbú neighborhood, an old and popular low-density neighborhood. There are 2 types of residents living on the site, marginal dwellings that sit in areas of lagoons and streams called bañados, and traditional residents whose families live in the same neighborhood generation after generation.
The climate, as in all of Paraguay, has high temperatures all year round during the day and even at night, ranging from 30 to 40 degrees.
The site is dominated by ceramic roof constructions on wooden tracing and load-bearing brick masonry built decades ago linked to self-construction. The land is located in a low-lying area, near the Tacumbu lagoon, whose formation is due to the depredation and extraction of raw stone for work. The soil of the place is very clayey, so in the lower areas near the river and some lagoons there are producers of artisanal bricks and fisheries-related businesses.
The main prison of the country is located in the neighborhood and therefore this situation determines the consolidation of the middle to lower class in the predominantly working class area dedicated to construction; In addition, there are programmes for the inclusion and rehabilitation of prisoners through the practice of various trades.
The place has a small and dynamic neighborhood scale, where everyone knows each other and helps each other.
ACTUACIÓN
A very low budget to build the house led to a rethinking of the project from a formal and technical point of view. We developed a design method: Pure, functional and optimal form on the outside as a container; spatial tension, fluidity and expressive freedom in the interior. The result was an economical, functional home with a sublime atmosphere.
Technically, a foundation slab was made for the foundation where the perimeter walls and the central pillar rest; the foundation slab serves as support and is made at ground level so that it remains as the floor of the house, in this way two necessary elements of the construction are solved with a single one, generating economic savings and material expressiveness of the structure. Almost all of the house was built by only three cousins of the owners who work as masons, which was one of the reasons for building it in exposed brick. The entire perimeter is built with different exposed brick rigging that serves to increase thermal inertia, generate air chambers and shadows for climate conditioning. The central pillar supports a brick umbrella that is released from the perimeter to filter the light and enhance its structural condition as an isolated element; this umbrella conducts rainwater to a collector that overflows and drains rainwater.
This house makes us reflect that by using our ingenuity and being sensitive to the place we can achieve dignified constructions in all social strata.
