This unique modern home is built of stone and features a courtyard in its center.
Casa Tapihue by Matías Zegers Arquitectos is a house in a vineyard built from white stone around a courtyard with a firepit in Casablanca, Chile. The residence is named for the valley of Tapihue between two mountains in Chile’s wine-growing region.
Matias Zegers Arquitectos designed the family home to give the resident plentiful ways of enjoying the natural landscape while being protected from the area’s fierce breezes. Four volumes are arranged around a square central courtyard paved in concentric rings. A dish-shaped metal fire pit sits at the center. The whole program is laid out around this patio that will provide a serene atmosphere through a hand-reach landscape full of aromas and protected from the permanent winds of Casablanca. Matias Zegers Arquitectos raised the house almost a meter above ground level on a concrete plinth to elevate the views above the rows of planted vines.
Trees and plants cluster in organic-style flower beds around the exterior of the courtyard. Sliding doors can be opened to external terraces and allow smells from the vegetation to waft through the house. A minimal metal water butt sits on one side, where rainwater from the roof collects and pours from a pipe into a barrel below.
Inside, the walls of chalky-white geometric stone have been left bare and contrast with poured concrete floors and warm wooden doorways and built-in furniture including shelves and low benches. A grand library occupies one side of the house. Full-height glazing overlooks the courtyard internally and the valley outside. Open bookcases made of wood allow for views straight through from the fire pit to the mountains. The roofs slope up on the volumes flanking the library, which has an overhanging steel roof that creates shelter and creates an unusual roofline for the house.
The materials and colors inside are the same as outside - stone, wood and metal, there's comfortable furniture and large open bookcases.
