Casa Desplazada

2025 • Design Charette

Casa Desplazada is an off-the-grid rural microhome embedded in the remote
landscape of Patagonia. Organized around a continuous sequence from an exterior barbecue spit to an interior vernacular oven, the project engages food production as a central element of Patagonian life.

The displacement of the house’s inner and outer shells negotiates these cooking
spaces in varied ways—whether through the slippage of the exterior envelope or the operability of articulated volumes, the architecture frames and protects both indoor and outdoor preparation zones from the region’s harsh climate. To withstand the extreme environmental conditions, the house employs vernacular red corrugated metal paneling as a rigid, protective outer skin, offset against a misaligned wood-framed inner sleeve. This poche discrepancy generates a layered spatial tension, where the centralized smoker oven and chimney puncture the massing, and where exterior panels slide open to define entry sequences and shelter outdoor cooking areas.

In elevation, the project emerges from the ground and reaches towards the sky. These solar chimneys create vertical heat ventilation as well as a formal gesture against the large mountains surrounding low Patagonian mountains. As both a formal and pragmatic gesture, this move creates a certain iconographic rereading of a vernacular typology.

Casa Desplazada creates a new geometric imposition within the land, carving out existing natural areas to cultivate nested objects of cultural production. One of the most important traditions of rural Patagonian life is outdoor food preparation in an asador, exterior barbecue spit. However, the harsh winter months do not always permit this type of activity so the internal kitchen is also fit with a contemporary horno de barro, or large stone oven. The dialogue between the traditions of indoor and outdoor smoke cooking allows activity to flow from the large, singular internal space to the exterior shapes.

These circles also define the language of the floor, and spatial differentiation inside. As the radii approach the internal volume, the walls
and floors are carved by imposition of the exterior space. This outside-in approach allows the interior to follow a logic of discovery
through discursive devices. Primarily a formal gesture, these carvings find their way into the pragmatic divisions of storage, stepped
volumes and gathering spaces. Another point of departure for the discovery of the internal experience was the indifference of the internal shell to the shape of the external envelope. Sectionally, the poche takes on different characteristics as certain important functions are embedded into the walls and floors of the project.

Internally, the house is structured around two primary skylights, oriented toward the prominent northern sun. As daylight filters through the inner volume, the open living space is dynamically illuminated, reinforcing its spatial continuity. Positioned along the primary cooking and storage zone, this space embeds essential domestic programs within
the poche, dissolving the perceptual boundary between the two massing elements and enabling inhabitation between their layers.

The project’s aesthetic expression emerges from its material strategy, leveraging the ubiquitous red corrugated metal of the Patagonian vernacular. This not only situates the house within the region’s material ecology but also heightens its legibility as an iconographic object within the landscape.

Ian Fennimore