Casa B8, a modern beach house in Chile | 56.02
Casa B8 is a small modern house located on the coast of Chile. Designed by architects 56.02, it consists of two simple rectangular blocks joined by a deck. One block contains the living area and a bedroom, while the second one, at half the size, is used as a guest suite. Between the two blocks is a courtyard patio protected on a third side by a storage wall that also houses a barbecue cooking area. The front door of the house actually provides entrance to this courtyard rather than going directly inside. Having a sheltered outdoor space was important as the area is subject to frequent high winds blowing in from the Pacific.
The ocean- and courtyard-facing walls of the small house are almost entirely transparent. Glass panels slide in tracks, allowing the house to be completely opened to the outdoors. The other walls are mostly solid, with narrow bands of windows for the kitchen and baths.
On the inside, the spaces are delineated by freestanding partitions which serve as clothes closets, bed headboards and display shelves. These partitions stop short of the ceiling so they appear more like furniture than walls, leaving the space feeling wide open. Of course this strategy of openness might not work well if the two bedrooms are occupied by people who have different schedules, but here the second bedroom only used for guests. For a one bedroom house, this can be a very effective strategy for increasing the sense of space, as was done by Sauquet Arquitectes when converting an old stable in Spain.
All the plumbing fixtures are located along the back wall of the house. Each bedroom has its own bathroom with toilet and sink in one compartment and shower in another. The shower compartments don’t include a drying/dressing space as they open directly off the bedroom closet areas anyway. Sharing space in this way allows the dedicated bathroom space to be smaller than with a traditional bathroom configuration.
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Photographs by Alejandro Gandarillas. Via Plataforma Arquitectura.
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Lovely. Except getting out of the shower/getting dressed in the master bedroom leaves you completely exposed to the kitchen. Or am I missing something?