Chiloé Island, Chile

Chilean architect Guillermo Acuña is fascinated with the typology of the traditional house on stilts found in southern Chile. 

His Santiago-based firm, Guillermo Acuña Arquitectos Asociados (GAAA), has long focused on creating contemporary iterations of this genre. 

“It expresses the possibilities of the orders of the plant kingdom and traditional construction in wood and fibers, which manifests the impressive geography of Chile,” states Acuña.

The studio’s latest take on this design ethos is Casa Detif, named after its idyllic site on the easternmost edge of the town of Detif, Chiloé Island, in the southern Los Lagos region.

Chiloé, derived from the indigenous Mapuche word chillwe, or “place of the seagulls,” is more easily accessed by boat or small plane. 

The island faces the Pacific Ocean to the west, and the Chiloé Sea and the Andes Mountains to the south on its eastern horizon. 

The house sits in a natural clearing in the middle of the woods on sloping terrain, part of the diverse landscape of hills, bays, and estuaries of the Chiloé archipelago. 

The irregular topography allows for wide, uninterrupted views of the sea, with frequent sightings of whales and dolphins.

The stilt house sits in a natural clearing on sloping land and offers uninterrupted views of the sea, with frequent sightings of whales and dolphins.

In this striking natural context, the house is appropriately enveloped in the foliage of tall Chilean myrtle trees. 

Its vegetation contrasts with the painted red pine beams that form the exterior frame of the structure. 

A series of diagonal beams, “symbol of the typical Chilean bell,” protects the house from falling branches. 

According to the architects, the elevated structure “refers to the palafitos de Chiloé,” the island’s typical wooden houses on stilts, built by local fishermen and farmers to resist flooding and coastal erosion. 

It is well known that these traditional houses are transported around the island as part of the “house-pulling minga” custom, in which locals come together to physically move a house (either by placing it on an ox-drawn sled, or on a raft towed by a boat) to a new location.

Supported by the stilts is a covered patio that wraps around the interior, organized around a central patio. 

The “ground” floor includes an open-plan living room and kitchen, while the first floor houses the bedrooms and bathrooms, with all furniture custom designed and upholstered by the studio. 

The layout of the interior spaces follows the vertical layers of the surrounding trees, with lighting carefully planned for dynamic effect. 

The foundations and the ground floor are aligned with the height of the tree trunks, where the air is usually humid and the light is sharper during the day; the first floor corresponds to the nearby foliage, which filters the sunlight and creates an overall softer atmosphere.

The living room features large glass walls and exposed pine beams.

The layers and weaving of the wooden components allow “the house to become a forest,” says GAAA architect Blanca Valdés. 

This forest within a forest, where light splashes through beams and branches, was inspired in part by the thaumatrope, a 19th-century optical toy that predated the invention of film. 

The design speaks of Acuña’s fascination with “a piece of landscape, a trapped ray of light, an unusual reflection confined to the interior-exterior duality, striped shadows that allow us to see between the spaces of its openings.”

Construction in this rather remote environment was one of the challenges of the project. 

“There are no roads to get to the site, so we use trucks that are as small as possible to bring materials,” the architects explain. 

“In the south of Chile, it rains a lot, so there was also a small window of time to build.” 

Small sections of pine wood sourced from nearby forests were used to create modular panels that facilitate on-site assembly. Pre-cut with CNC machines, the pieces were ready to be assembled by the studio’s usual collaborators, a family of three carpenters who followed the GAAA construction manual step by step.

The sloping red frame is inspired by the shape of the Lapageria rosea, or bellflower, the national flower of Chile.

GAAA recently joined forces with Fundación Reforestemos, a charity focused on reforestation. 

“With each project that we build with wood, we will calculate how many trees were used for the project and, on the same site as the house, we plan to plant the same [number of] native trees,” explains Valdés. 

Casa Detif highlights a model of sustainable design and serves as a fine example of deeply site-specific architecture that breaks away from traditional construction methods.

The staircase is full of light. Local pine wood was used to create modular panels for easier assembly on site.

Project: Casa Detif
Architects: Guillermo Acuña Arquitectos Asociado (GAAA)