Staircase House - Casa Ruiz Caballero 
SHEET - Architects: Claudio Vergara & Berndt SIELFELD
- Technical Advisor: Sasa Mitrovich Byrne, Civil Engineer
- Contributor: Patricio González Moraga
- Contractor: Portas Limited
- Location: Dam Curauma Light, Valparaíso, Chile.
- area: 600 m2.
- Built Area: 100 M2
- Project Year: 2008
- Year Built: 2009
- Cost: 65,000 U.S. $.
- Prevalent Materials: concrete block foundation, structure impregnated pine wood, coatings exterior wood and cement and covered with sheets of zinc and aluminum.
- Photo: Emilio Fuenzalida Bravo
EXPLANATORY REPORT
The work arises from desires of the client, city of Valparaiso, which coincide with the concern of the architects to find an architecture that collects important features of the cultural space of the city. Specifically, you regain the intimate rooms and hidden that occurs in the ravines, through the adjustment of volume to the slope, landscape requirements (such as sunlight, ventilation, overlooking the forest and the lake) and with an austere materiality and honest warmth achieved.
are major technical challenges:
First, the site is narrow, with a slope of more than thirty-five degrees clockwise longer. The soil has a surface layer of expansive clay four feet thick, forcing deeper foundations and moisture control problems.
Second, a stream microclimate Curauma sector itself, which receives moisture upwards from the sea, by sector of Laguna Verde through the gorge Balmaceda, having a rich relative humidity (greater than 60% most of the year).
Third, the budget was restricted to a bank loan of "self", which required the housing costs similar to those of the houses surrounding series sets developed by large real estate on flat, simple design, repetitive and highly controlled construction costs by greater economies of scale.
To meet both the requirements of the client as to technical requests raised housing as a unit that adapts to the slope breaks ground, articulating the various chambers through an internal scale that connects short breaks which require the interior layout. This volume highlights the main view of the Laguna La Luz (eastward) and reflects the heat of the afternoon (west) through upper windows that illuminate the sky and accumulate heat.
The house is spread according to the slope, but is located above the slope of the land without digging. Continuous foundations were built of concrete blocks, much cheaper than the reinforced concrete that are used to this type of soil, putting together a ventilated chamber. Above them stood a complex ventilated treated pine wood, which allowed to circumvent the high cost of foundations and solve the humidity rising, making a warm, dry floor.
Consequently, the interior is formed with a single envelope thermal insulation and moisture vapor. It is especially favored, the possibility of cross ventilation through the design of the windows of the house.
This enabled to achieve indoor places of great warmth and reinterpreted through the architecture and its material, ways of dealing with the landscape, typical of the architecture of the hills of Valparaíso. Unpretentious, the architecture of the house meets the technical requirements austerely Engagement, achieving a peaceful habitation and plunged into the ravine.
