M1 House | CASAMAR

The Casamar housing complex is located on a beach in Zorritos, between the Panamericana Norte Highway and a few meters from the northern-Peruvian sea of the Pacific Ocean.

 

The story of this project begins with 5 friends who decided to buy a beach parcel, in order to turn it into a personal vacation space when they needed it; and, when not, for rent. For this reason, and with a diplomatic purpose, the land had to be divided into 5 homogeneous parcels; and contain the same piece of housing that would be repeated 5 times.

 

It is there when the M1 House emerges; a unit that should function as an individual dwelling for each of the users -owners or tenants-, but that acquires meaning through the configuration of its whole.

 

Parameterized by its sub-lot -8m wide by 100m long-, the unit required an elongated shape that can contain all the necessary program to function. Also, users asked for privacy between one and another to be able to be rented to different families, so there had to be complete seclution between the adjacent sides of the houses.

 

Given this premise, the unit had to opt for lateral and rear facades -North, South, and East- extremely 'opaque'; and create strategies to generate a controlled and efficient income of light and air through slender spans, zenith lighting and carvings that would later form balconies. On the contrary, to the west the facade could be very translucent to obtain the best view of the sea and the beach without losing privacy.

 

In this way, the bedroom piece is conceived under the antagonic idea of needing to open without allowing a visual register; since, in addition to being the most intimate part of the program, it had to be located in one of the private facades of the house.

 

In response, a modular bedroom piece is created which, through carves on the south facade, works with a private patio or balcony that allows it to open to the west. This gives you the possibility of receiving the predominant wind from the southwest, and having a view of the sea and the sunset in each of the repetitions.

 

Added to the previous conditions, the equatorial climate factor of high temperatures and torrential rains remained to be addressed.

 

For this reason, complementary to the composition of the balconies, thermodynamics appears as a formal response to the context through the ceilings. By playing with the heights and inclinations of the slabs that cover the second level, the house illuminates all the bedrooms with zenith light; and works in harmony with the balconies to draw in cool air from the wide southwest void and expel hot air through the high north-east opening creating cross-ventilation.

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The repetition of this modular piece would become the core of composition and configuration of the project.

 

In addition, the units take advantage of the length of the sub-lot to be offset and increase the visual angle of the balconies towards the outside. Also, this distribution on the second level would cause that, since all the bedrooms are located towards the south side of each unit, and, therefore, the circulation towards the north side, the overlap time between the users of one unit and another would be minimize.

 

In this narrative that was acquiring unity, it made sense that the first and second floors would distribute the program dichotomously.

 

Therefore, if the second level had to contain the night program of the house and create intimacy; then, the first level had to carry the diurnal program, and could function as an extension of the beach and the horizon. In this sense, the bedrooms are considered as pieces that function in private units; and, on the contrary, the social area as a large and simple space. Additionally, this would give the entrance hall, which contained the staircase, the opportunity to become a space of convergence between these two parts of the dichotomy; marking the beginning and the end between both, and becoming the articulating space of the unit.

 

At the same time, the structure of the house is proposed as an integral part of the architecture, so that both form a symbiosis with each other. That way, the spatiality of the house is not interrupted by disruptive elements, since it is the architecture itself that structures it.

 

The result of this work translates into the fact that, when going through M1 House and the Casamar complex, the user encounters very varied and rich situations of light and air exposure that enrich the spatial route of the work; which alse make it comfortable, interesting and pleasant at all times for those who inhabit it.

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