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Simple Affordable Tropical Home?

by Susi, 14 August 2008

Biehl House by Garcia and Rojo, Santiago, Chile.

Residential architecture, particularly for the tropics, is a matter of great importance to the Sleeping Tiger on the Island of Bali. Here is a simple, efficient, affordable home design which has been getting a great deal of buzz. Built in the non-tropical region of Santiago, Chile, the Biehl House by Jorge Garcia and Daniel Rojo is a splendid inspiration for all manner of tropical and temperate homes. Keep it simple, but make it beautiful, and consumption-driving trends be damned. Let that be a manifesto for our age.

Details, Biehl House by Garcia and Roja, Santiago, Chile.

Here is a 95 square meter house that is sensitive to its surroundings, and is more than worthwhile to consider and study. Can we make a Bali adaptation to moderate the insensitive “villa-fication” of the island’s hinterlands, perhaps? Why not try it with reclaimed local wood, local craftsmen’s joinery, oriented to the sun and seasons appropriately? I await the first Bali adaption, eagerly. If you don’t do it, I just might. Light on the land, standing on stilts, shaded where shade should be, inviting the landscape in. Makes sense here, not just in Chile.

Seasonal schematic of the Biehl House by Garcia and Rojo, Santiago, Chile.

Footnote: the Chilean architecture site where I found this is more than worth your Blueline bandwidth to browse. Don’t dismiss the antipodes. Don’t be xenophobic. The world is wide and it’s not all American or French.

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