Text description provided by the architects. Inside the highlands of eastern Antioquia is Villa Sofia, a project conceived from memory and remembrance, which seeks to continue the generational legacy of its owners, from the time of the colonial typology characteristic of the area, as the origin of the new home that intends to continue growing over time.
The main premise of the approach to the project was to conserve the existing old house, which is due to the emotional burden it has for its owners, as it is the house of their grandparents and parents; adding the joint resistance to the growing real estate pressure in Llano Grande, given by the rise of sumptuous contemporary constructions, radically removed from the essence of the paisa colonial typology. In this way, the project departs from this real estate trend and decides to honor the construction that for more than seventy years has given shelter to an entire family legacy and has it available to reinterpret its new use.
This challenge of conserving the existing house begins by studying its typology, which corresponds to the basic and first description of this type of housing, made up of a single-level construction, protected by a traditional hipped roof made of clay tiles, a large perimeter eave whose main use is social, and functions as a transition space between interior and exterior; and a very closed interior that operates as the main sheltered housing area whose few openings unfold in a succession of solids and voids from openwork doors and windows, which resolve the interior-exterior connection by breaking a direct connection with the imposing social contemplation garden, and a tree that is the protagonist of the place, also based on revolving walls that allow this new opening and relationship, but that by remaining closed keep the image, the volume and the relationship of the spaces identical.
Proposing this change of use in the existing house and proposing the rooms and private areas in the new construction, generates particular dynamics around the way of inhabiting the spaces and the place; establishing the need for interaction and continuous interior exterior path between the two houses, that is, they can be one without the other, but they complement each other; housing, the pre-existing block: living room, dining room, kitchen and laundry, while the added block, the bedrooms, bathrooms, and family study. Proposing a subtle relationship between the volumes, by means of two eaves projected in the same type of roof in clay tile, which approach each other, but do not touch, and which result in a small uncovered expansion that represents the symbol of transition of uses.
This is how the new construction is structured by “duplicating” the existing volume, intervening in it for the benefit of the ideal way of living for its owners at the present time, which consists of actions such as: reducing the length of the eaves taking into account that its function as a space for social use is not required in this new volume; the inclusion of a central patio as a current need of life for the owners, which seeks to maintain independence towards the outside without giving up the closeness of nature and the quality of greater natural lighting; respect for the original typology in terms of the rhythm and repetition of its openings, adding “imperceptible” windows that allow maintaining an image of traditional Paisa housing when they are closed, but with the possibility of transforming its interior spaces in our reinterpretation of the large windows contemporaries.
Finally, this new construction presents the appearance of two upper volumes in glass, which originate in the interest of the owners to be able to enjoy a view never experienced before: a contemplative panoramic view of the distant landscape and its surroundings in the form of a 360 ° viewpoint. . Volumes that, arising from a totally new requirement in relation to the original typology, are resolved as volumes that are frankly alien to the construction and that, instead of seeking to blend in, seek to highlight the new way of living that they represent.
This is how the project understands the relevance for the client of the passage of time reflected in the way of living, embraces the position of an architecture of permanent change and offers the user new dynamics of use; These are punctual architectural interventions, but not static ones that will give the possibility of adapting to different times, users and ways of life according to the generations that pass through… “The duration of things is subject to change.”
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Cite: “Villa SOFIA / nm+a | T | L | nestor medina arquitectura” [Villa Sofia / nm+a | T | L | nestor medina arquitectura] 07 Apr 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed .
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