felipe alarcón restores lautaro house as a slanting volume in chile

located in the neighborhood of linares, chile, the lautaro house restoration by architect felipe alarcón explores its users’ connection with the built environment, and the meaningful link between materials and memories. through an architectural intervention, the aim is to give the house a new order, allowing souvenirs and their daily presence to be expressed in a subtle, abstract manner.

for this project, felipe alarcón‘s first step is clearance: the decision of establishing what remains and what is removed. this seeks to preserve the original structural matrix (double band) and, in turn, reuse certain materials that connect with preexistences like wooden decorations or the old roof tiles as masonry for the façade. in addition, the slanting volume supported by the original structure, together with a storage volume, magnify the house’s interior void to provide fresh air and new light. a long window at the top allows indirect southern daylight to slide through the curved ceiling formed by the inverted trusses, integrating a previously missing element: the sky.