Home in the Setback

SETBACK: Condition of the project, converted into living, experience and sensations.
Manta is a relatively small city. Urbanizations and closed sets of houses have been the main actors of urban growth. This has led to configurations of lots and dwellings where the ma-jority tends to have a ratio of 1: 2, where the bottom of the lot is approximately the double of the front, and with a practically undeniable condition: THE SETBACK.

THE HOME: We have been asked, on request, to design a home for a young family of newlyweds, full of dreams and experiences to live. From grills with friends, family gather-ings to the conception of children and their growth, are causal for us, and must be reflected in the design, under an "idea" that frames and that adapts itself to accommodate them throughout the time.

AN IDEA AND A CONDITION: We have started analyzing the prejudice that the setback (4.00m in front, 1.50m in sides and 2.00m back) is only used to arrange service spaces, al-most always lagging of connection and relation with the users of the house. They are need-ed, but no one wants to see them or live them, or is simply used as a “blade” that cuts the volume and determines the shape of the project.

Contrary to the above, for us, the idea of “home” in the house is not focused on spaces that are basic to it, such as the kitchen, bedrooms, the place for books or TV, but those who make them become unique, with sensation and with desire to experience them, those that are not usually planned or that can simply be obviated, and are located in the SETBACK, in form of small “patios” and paths, where activities are centered, and make living of users more pleasant.

Under this premise, the areas of the housing are placed and grouped in a certain way in which the SETBACK is the protagonist. This becomes a systematic, pro-grammatical con-frontation of what is assumed, in a rigid way, the house should contain, a system which the entrance leads to the "living", another door to the dining room / kitchen and behind, behind doors, the bedrooms. However, we have decided to change the programmatic order of these components to accommodate the concept of house.

The main access of the house is located on the right side of the lot, creating a "tunnel" en-trance, where there is a small garden that leads to a “container” space (living room, dining room, kitchen) fully open, without divisions, related to an interior patio, where a space of family integration, games or just relaxation is implanted to suit the users. The route to bed-rooms has been combined with the setback through a smaller interior patio, of semi-private quality, for the use of customers and their family. In turn, the bedrooms have been arranged in such a way that they are visually related to the side setback, giving them a natural feeling and comfort, given directly by the vegetable palette of colors arranged on the left and back side of the lot. For the future children, small spaces that connect the bedrooms are created in the back of the house, making them a possibility to connect spaces without “locking” them between walls.

Wood textures on deck, use “free plan” in social spaces, apparent concrete walkways, ex-posed masonry walls, vegetation covering paths, floor textures, circulations, directed views, glass screens, light and lighting fixtures, are just tools that adapt and conjugate in an archi-tectural way to give life, experience and sensations to the HOME throughout the SET-BACK.