A house must guard a world of its own. Through its spaces and paths unveil landscapes in its contemplations, mysteries in its intimacies, silences in its voids. A house must build places. We seek here a set of unique perceptual experiences of dwelling, a diversity of spaces that would lead us from collective contemplation to introspection and that its inhabitants could enjoy the beautiful geography around them, intensifying their relations with each other and with this place that surrounds them.

Situated on a privileged corner condition this house makes use of its two fronts to organize and reveal itself. The compositional synthesis that defines it has two moments: a monolithic volume anchored to earth and a set of slightly suspended perpendicular planes. The first emerges from the topography, the second floats over it. Without resorting to the modern stylistic models of the glass box, the structural supports or the excessive cantilevers, there is no excess but the precise positioning of elements that configure a spatiality of its own.

As if carved from the inside out, the main volume is 35 meters long and has a series of moments and voids ranging from the patio – designed not as a door but as a transition between the outside world and the inside – to a sequence of spaces that accommodate much of a traditional house program. Other subtractions gradually unfold within and are associated to a kind of 'window-ode' in which its facades are transformed: countless openings of different sizes, layers and functioning carefully frame the surrounding landscape, bringing it in and creating living pictures at every moment on is circulating inside.

The second moment of construction is defined by two plans, a horizontal one and a vertical one, reflecting the master volume settings. In it we see the central living room, still an interior space but fully open to the specific set of outer spaces. A sequence of courtyards and gardens set their relations with the landscape and with the different dimensions of coexistence that they configure: from the social courtyard that faces the mountains, to the courtyard that is designed as an internal square, we see family life happening. Sunny or shaded, dry or green, with different types of vegetation and water, these squares accumulate the possibilities of living in a house added to the raised terrace on the roof of the central living room.

The materiality of the building is defined by a reinforced concrete structural system and a series of lightweight steel and ecological wood elements that cover the façades of the main volume giving it substantial thermal protection as a ventilated double façade system. These elements enable the manufacturing of various shutters and openings that allow users to control their privacy, natural ventilation, luminosity and visuals. Outside, two large movable metal panels have the same flexible character being able to stand upright (which defines the boundary plane), or horizontally shading the inner courtyards as large umbrellas manually and lightly controlled through their counterweights.

Finally, natural light reveals itself as an omnipresent architectural element. The massive nature of the construction reveals openings to the horizons, the sky and the ground, landscapes always framed by courtyards and windows that awaken the senses of its inhabitants to their own position, guarded by this ark that rests anchored in dialogue with its place.