The pathway for the dramatised audience hangs from a central girder and culminates on the roof-terrace, proposed for a popular circus. Everything seems to have been measured from above. The circus is the first, the most primitive and the most austere place imaginable for shows. A strange objet trouvé, far from its home, will appear above the theatre, a source of delight for the neighbourhood. The rehearsal rooms, offices and services occupy other houses in the complex, transforming the entire building as it stands into a new internally interrelated organism.

Text provided by the architect.

“Every six hours, large masses of water flood then empty the horizon, connecting and disconnecting the island from the nearby coast as the marine ground appears and disappears almost without notice,” he added.

Aptly named Isla Lebe, the residence comprises three pavilions that are connected to each other and the nearby beach via staircases and boardwalks that cut through the surrounding vegetation. Their simple wooden structures are covered in larch shingles, a deciduous species that has gained a silvery patina from the salty air.

The largest of the three structures is a repurposed boathouse, to which Guillermo Acuña added an additional floor with two separate living suites above. A large trapezoidal staircase connects the two level’s respective terraces, and also serves as raked seating overlooking the scenery surrounding the peninsula.

The ground level, where boats were previously stored, was converted into a kitchen and dining room. The walls, ceiling and floor are all painted red, while antique furniture and memorabilia lend this space a festive and unique ambiance.

“I did this because there is a native bush which grows around the houses called Chilco, which has vibrant red flowers,” Acuña told Dezeen. As for the furniture, he explained that many of the objects were salvaged from a nearby church that was destroyed in an earthquake.

On the upper level, the architect extended the home with a similar wooden structure. This time, he left the material in its natural colour, creating a more muted feel for the sleeping areas upstairs.

Two additional dwellings are built near to the original building. The complex was built gradually between 2010 and 2018, but all buildings use a similar language of heavy timber construction, with exposed structure and painted red accents.

“Simple and austere, they experience the restlessness of the environment, so that not much else is needed to inhabit this place,” said Acuña’s project description.

The interiors feature generously glazed rooms, with views onto the water and surrounding inlets from every space. The structure’s simple wooden details are left exposed throughout the project.

Text provided by the architect.

One of the structures known as the Room has a gabled roof, while the other known as Prism House is mono-pitched. Radić created the latter to draw on the geometrical structure of Prism House, completed by Shinohara in Japan’s Yamanashi Prefecture in 1974.

“Its famous lateral facade, a right-angled isosceles triangle laid on the floor, and its exquisite interior diagonal wooden post, which, like many other supports in the houses by this Japanese architect, orders the space by interrupting in a position that seems out of place, are signs of its uncomfortable geometry,” said Radić.

Corrugated black metal roofing panels, known as Instapanel, cover the sloped roof and two walls of Prism House, while the rear wall is glazed. Inside, this block contains two bedrooms with a bathroom, With little documentation of Shinohara’s design, Radić developed the premise of the project from a few architectural photographs. As a result, he slightly altered the design of the property in Chile, reducing the length of the longer side from 10.8 metres to 7.2 metres to match the 7.2-metre structural cross-section.

“The exclusion of photographs of the longitudinal facade and of the bedrooms from publications leads me to believe that for the architect, the 45-degree cross-section of the volume and the post were the essences of the Prism House,” he explained.

“Thus, the Prism House facing the Llaima Volcano that we are building is effectively a section of a cube, approximating the ideal of Shinohara, assumed to be expressed in his photographs, and moving away from the reality of the Prism House in Japan, as it is simply a construction of a photographic piece of the original.”

The pitched roof of Room is also composed of the black panelling but is raised on glazed walls that run around ground floor living area. Radić said this shape takes cues from his project, the Room built in Chiloe, which is composed of a galvanised steel base and a red tented top. Nods to this design are also provided by red decor touches inside, like textile seat covers and cooking pots. While the lower level of Room is open-plan with expansive views, the second floor has three beds tightly tucked into opposing sides of the gabled roof. Each side is accessed by a separate ladder.

Materials are kept simple, with the interior of the roofing left exposed, and blackened Oregon pine wood covering the walls and floor. This material matches the deck that spans between the two volumes and is pierced by a tree.

Text description provided by the architect.