Casa 1 - Sisga 2007 - Yemail Arquitectura

Project Details

House 1 – Sisga 2007

DESCRIPTION

In 1845, the American poet Henry David Thoreau published an essential text recounting the two years he spent living on the shores of Walden Pond, in a rudimentary 3 × 4 meter cabin that he built himself from timber offcuts, second-hand shingles, and reused bricks exchanged for days of labor. Thoreau describes how, during his solitary stay, he developed an increasingly intimate relationship with nature, one that eventually led him to question the modern relationship between self-exploitation and productivity, as well as what is truly essential and genuinely necessary in order to live well.

In 1922, something of this existential relationship with dwelling reappeared during the stay of German philosopher Martin Heidegger and his wife Elfride in the mountains of the Black Forest, where they inhabited a small and elemental 6 × 7 meter retreat and chose to experiment with a more essential way of life. It was probably a sentiment shared by Le Corbusier when, in 1952, he designed the Cabanon as a retreat for himself and his wife Yvonne Gallis on the French Riviera: a 3.66 × 3.66 meter timber room in which he was able to distill forty-five years of travels and projects that forever changed the way architecture was understood. Closer examples, such as the 18 m² brick cabin that architect Dicken Castro built for his family in 1963 in the hills of Suba, also belong to this long tradition of celebrated modern figures—and anonymous citizens alike—who chose the rigor of a simple, limited, slow-paced life within a minimal space.

The essence of these ideas was forcibly revived through the experience of confinement. And at this point, when the promise of a change in the development paradigm that the pandemic seemed to announce now appears to be yet another revolution that might have been but will not be, I would like to think that some part of this need to gather life inward in order to rediscover its mysteries, to recognize our dependence on others, and to become aware of how deeply outsourced our most basic needs for food and shelter have become, may remain embedded somewhere in our deepest memory.

That these questions have everything to do with architecture is also a symptom of how the profession carries within it the virus of unsustainable growth and excessive consumption. And in a country where access to quality housing—one of the most fundamental human aspirations—is far from guaranteed, and where for most people it demands enormous effort, persistence, and dignity, this should compel us to reconsider our priorities, regulations, real-estate market, and, as earlier generations did, what we truly need.

These images belong to our first architectural project, developed in Sisga in July 2007. It was a 9 × 4.5 meter camp composed of three spaces, a bathroom, and a storage room for the builders who would later construct Casa Barn. It was assembled from ten round timber posts, eighty roughly planed boards, twelve thermo-acoustic roof panels, and a pile of pine offcuts we found on the site. Through the intensity of use, the structure gradually changed status until it became a permanent refuge. Seen in retrospect, it is a tribute to the way the builders inhabited the site, but also to work done by hand, honest material, and chance transformed into opportunity. It already contained the ideals and values that, fifteen years later, we continue to pursue. The project was designed together with Michel Pineda, built by Master Builder Carlos Picón, photographed by Mateo Pérez, with production by Animalia.

DETAILS

Use

Housing

Type

Rural building

Area

57,78 m²

Location

Sisga, Cundinamarca – Colombia

Meters above the sea level

2760

Average annual temperature

12.2 °C

Year

2007

Design and construction

Yemail Architecture (Oficina Informal) + Carlos Picón (Master Builder)

Project team

Antonio Yemail + Michel Pineda

Production

Ana María Zuluaga

Photo Credits

Mateo Pérez

Categories: Housing