SCL architecture transforms a hundred-year-old house into an event space in chile

SCL architecture transforms a hundred-year-old house into an event space in chile
(above) view from the quincho courtyard
all images © pablo casals aguirre

chile-based SCL – studio cáceres lazo has proposed a constellation of objects, related through geometry, color, and character, to be placed on the chassis of an early 20th-century house in santiago. their strategic placement —somehow disrupting the logic of what already exists — transforms the interior of the house, and forces a redefinition of the role of each program component. removal of the adobe cladding from some diving walls amplifies this change, leaving bare the oak structural skeleton, and generating new and unexpected visual connections.

steel-crafted sliding doors detail

the change in use — from residential to cultural, private to public — is evidenced by the scale of the new objects (doors, windows, furniture, lighting fixtures, etc.) that respond and anticipate this new order, as a reflection of the episodic natures of the events that take place here. the most dramatic part of the operation was the insertion of a small 200-seat dinner theater. this theater is treated as an object itself: monolithic and introverted from the exterior, just three openings interrupt its envelope. on the contrary, the interior is soft and expressive, courtesy of an acoustic skin manufactured onsite with timber slats of varying sizes and sections.

interior view of the renovated house

the house as much as the theater works as a stage for music and dance. performers move, along with the guests, from the quincho — an inner-courtyard redefined by a six-meter high chimney over a barbecue pit in the center of the space— to a media gallery, and then the dinner theater for the main event. the end result is an architecture of things, where the new —monochrome and abstract in design— is in constant tension with the historicist architecture of the existing house, in a deliberate game of contrasts.

steel-crafted pivoting door cutting through the existing house

view from the theater access courtyard

steel-crafted swinging door detail

interior view of the theater

steel plate staircase detail

interior view of the theater

acoustic timber cladding detail

exploded axonometric view of the intervention

project info:

project name: de pablo a violeta
client: inmobiliaria fest
program: dinner theater
location: bellavista, santiago de chile.
architects: scl – studio cáceres lazo
design team: gabriel cáceres, daniel lazo
collaborators: alejandra sepúlveda, john miller
structural engineering: rodrigo bravo novoa
plot area: 875 m2
renovation area: 255 m2
new building area: 460 m2
project year: 2014-2015
materials: steel, glass, timber.
budget: usd 500.000
photography: pablo casals aguirre

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edited by: juliana neira | designboom