Flashback: Casa Do / Cazú Zegers

Architect: Cazú Zegers
Ubicación: Chigualoco, Los Vilos, Chile
Collaborators: Grupo AIRA (Juan Pablo Almarza, Pamela Liddle, Mª Luisa Zegers)
Area: 275 sqm
Year: 2001
Photographs: Carlos Eguiguren

Structure: OPH, Oscar Paredes
Technical Supervisor: Eduardo Cortés
Constructor : Eduardo Saavedra
Electric Engineer: Promedel
Client: Juan Forch / Francisca Vial

A way of living inside two curving walls that shelter like a womb, over  looking the vastness of the pacific ocean, on the northern shores of Chile the project surges from the mandate of a house to be  used as a resting place, during weekends, summer vacations, etc. It is located on a family owned terrain, where other house, of different styles, already existed.

Architectural order is foundes on the will to create a womb matriy to protect against the vastness of the sea and at the same time, permits contemplation. From a warm interior.

Architectural will is that of substraction, therefore it is decided to build a concrete circle the way a well is constructed.Architectural meaning, is that of a circle transuer send by a straight line that contains the hours acces, and also separates public space from private one.The complexity of the solution comes from the intersection of two volumes; the surrounding circle and the straight regularity; where the circle inserts it self with the exterior, thus preventing the appearance of a new constructive way, but more like the notion of a water tank.

The architectural operation, is to inscribe a rectangle into a circle, generating a series of voids and fills void facing east and west, are used windows, whilst the fills contain two curved walls, being arcs of the circle that hols the slabs on 3 different levels, of living space. Intersection of the rectangle with the curve walls creates a central fountain of light.Carpentry is used in furnitures and objects d´art, in the central space, also the wooden staircase leading to the roof terrace