Architect Nicolas Vicente has completed House La Primavera, a striking single-story family residence located in the rural area of Calera de Tango, in Chile's Metropolitan Region. The project, finished in 2024, showcases a contemporary approach to residential architecture through its masterful use of exposed reinforced concrete and thoughtful integration with the surrounding landscape.
Situated on an expansive 20,000 square meter flat site, the house features a built area of 650 square meters. The design team, led by Vicente with Agostina Gianello, collaborated with technical specialist Alberto Novoa and general contractor DBC to realize this ambitious project. Engineering and civil consulting services were provided by GRAVIS, ensuring the structural integrity of the concrete construction.
The residence is constructed entirely in exposed reinforced concrete, creating a bold architectural statement that appears to float above the surrounding vegetation and a reflecting pool at the entrance. These concrete walls serve dual purposes, functioning both as expressive design elements and practical solutions that shield the home from prevailing winds while creating visual screens between interior spaces. The board-formed concrete texture adds significant depth to the geometric composition while reinforcing an aesthetic philosophy centered on material honesty and enduring simplicity.
The house's organizational structure follows a longitudinal axis that carefully arranges the program and generates a thoughtful sequence of walled patios. These interstitial spaces play a crucial role in the overall design strategy, introducing abundant natural light throughout the interior, enabling effective cross ventilation, and establishing constant visual connections to the surrounding garden. This approach significantly enriches the spatial experience as residents and visitors move through the house.
With a deliberately restrained palette of finishes and continuous flooring throughout the interior, the architecture fosters an exceptionally strong connection with its natural surroundings. Large sliding glass panels, strategically placed interior courtyards, and expansive terraces work together to emphasize spatial fluidity, effectively blurring the traditional boundaries between indoor and outdoor spaces. The intentional fragmentation of the building's volume, combined with the integration of vegetation between built elements, makes the house remarkably permeable and delicately embedded within the landscape.
The project represents a sophisticated approach to contemporary residential design that prioritizes adaptability, context sensitivity, and the creation of continuous, immersive spatial experiences. Vicente's design concept embraces fluidity as a fundamental principle, where conventional boundaries between architecture and nature, between function and emotion, dissolve to create a living environment that is simultaneously free, honest, and harmonious. Rather than functioning as merely a built object, House La Primavera is conceived as a comprehensive framework for inhabiting the landscape—serving as an invitation to contemplation and conscious living in harmony with the natural environment.
