in chile, pezo von ellrichshausen's 'raem house' surrounds a sunlit courtyard

a hidden garden in rural chile

Sitting on a gentle slope overlooking the distant vineyards in a narrow valley, Pezo von Ellrichshausen‘s Raem House opens up with a large, interior courtyard. This light-filled, hidden space hosts a dry garden, some boulders and rainwater, and is partially enclosed by four curving slabs, each supported by a large central column.

The house takes shape as a plinth within Chile‘s rural area of Curacavi. Lacking a main directional axis inside, the lateral sequence of narrow rooms is withdrawn to the back and slightly embedded into the natural terrain. This organization promotes an ‘asymmetrical mediation’ to break up the centralized courtyard house.

images by Pezo von Ellrichshausen

inside pezo von ellrichshausen’s raem house

The Raem House was designed by the architects at Pezo von Ellrichshausen with ‘a subtle compensation in size and proportion.’ Its living spaces are distributed along a circular loop, each of them opening onto the central garden. This largest, sunlit space is half covered by deep shadows, and serves as the home’s outdoor living space and frames the vast, surrounding landscape with large openings on every side.

The architects comment: ‘Depending on the position of the sliding glass panels, the opacity of the cardinal projections is blocked by the mirage of another courtyard. Beyond this illusionary domain, the horizontal format of the house stands as a solitary abstract figure, with a seemingly organic void, but without a definite scale. The reinforced concrete construction, with its yellow pigmentation, appears as a monolithic plate amidst broken stones and native bushes.’

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project info:

project: Raem house

architecture: Pezo von Ellrichshausen | @pezovonellrichshausen

location: Curacavi, Metropolitan Region, Chile

design team: Mauricio Pezo, Sofia von Ellrichshausen

collaborator: Fabian Puller, Simon Bohnet, Olga Herrenbruck, Amelie Bes

consultants: Marcelo Valenzuela, Dyluz

builder: Natural

structure: Sergio Contreras

built area: 187 square meters (2,013 square feet)

completion: 2021

photography: Pezo von Ellrichshausen