“A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to let alone,” wrote Henry David Thoreau in his book Walden; or, Life in the Woods, first published in 1854.
The motto of the American writer and philosopher, who sought “only the essential facts of life”, seems to have inspired architect Jorge Ramón Giacometti, who completed a wooden house in Atahualpa, Ecuador, with his studio JRG Taller de Arquitectura. Formal simplicity, limited resources and respect for the environment in which the building stands are the basis for the construction of Casa Ocal.
“When we were asked to build a 110m2 house with a minimum budget, in a place that is difficult to reach in the Ecuadorian mountains, we decided to reduce the project to its simplest form. The whole structure and the building envelope were therefore designed with as little material as possible,” Giacometti says.
The house is raised on pilotis, so that it adapts to the topography and protects the interior from damp ground. The volume is oriented according to the predominant views, and consists of five modulated spans housing the different functional areas. The structure is made of concrete pillars, with beams and joists in eucalyptus strips; the shell is also made of the same material. The interior furnishings were made in the workshop from scrap metal sheets and profiles.
- Project:
- Casa Ocal
- Location:
- Atahualpa, Ecuador
- Architect:
- Jorge Ramón Giacometti – JRG Taller de Arquitectura
- Design team:
- Gabriel Utreras Betancourt, María Fernanda Pineda, Emmanuelle Treviño
- Engineering:
- Patricio Cevallos
- Area:
- 110 mq
- Completion:
- 2020