M House

The project emerged from a process of reflection on certain factors that we retain essential: the climatic conditions of the Peruvian coast, the geographical characteristics of the coast in which the dwelling was to be located, and the clients needs.
Between the Andes range and the ocean there is a long thin strip of dusty, dun coloured desert almost at sea level.  Although the Peruvian desert is one of the most arid ones in the world, its climate is not extreme. Temperatures range from 15°C minimum in winter to 29°C maximum in summer, with very little variations between day and night.
These characteristics determined two basic strategies.
The first one is the ambiguity between exterior and interior spaces within an enclosed space that clearly separates private and public domains, usually seen in local popular houses.
The second one is the use of sand and red colours that avoid the building from visually “getting old” as it gathers layers of desert dust.
The house is conceived as a plain rectangular volume “excavated” by narrow open spaces conceived as cracks in hardened sand, protected from wind and sun, where circulation develops following natural topography.
These open spaces merge with closed ones through a double height loggia, framing the sea and the island in front of it.
The house is divided into three distinct volumes.  The first is composed of the garage and the entrance.  The children’s bedrooms and the guestroom occupy the central volume.  The parents’ bedroom is located above the kitchen-dining-living room space constituting the third volume.
The living – dining room configures the main space of the house and its double- height space is the link between ocean and precinct’s inner open spaces. From this space, the house is revealed in all of its height, width and length, giving the dweller a feeling of ampleness in a quite small house.