Sheet index — Aske Tarn Architects

studio@asketarn.example

A concept by Warped Web Studio

AT-019 — Residential

Casa Umbra

A cluster of earth-coloured volumes and a single tower half-buried in desert sand.
Width of the shaded court: 18.00 metres

Width of the shaded court

Location
Atacama, Chile
Grid ref.
24°08′S 69°56′W
Programme
Courtyard house for a family of astronomers
Year
2020–2023
Status
Completed
Area
520 m²
Levels
1, with sunken court
Structure
Rammed earth, 600 mm; timber roof

The clients observe the sky for a living, and asked for a house that was dark at night and cool by day. The walls are rammed from the earth excavated for the court, 600 millimetres thick. Rooms face inward. The only openings to the desert are narrow and deep, so sunlight enters as a line rather than a flood.

S-01

Shade as a material

We drew the house as a sequence of shadows before we drew its walls: the morning shadow on the court, the long afternoon bar across the living room, the complete darkness of the observation terrace at night.

Sunlight falling in long bars across a sand-covered floor inside an open room.
Sunlight falling in long bars across a sand-covered floor inside an open room.

S-02

Earth from the court

Every tonne of earth removed to sink the court was returned to the walls. The layers of each day's ramming remain visible, a record of the construction in the colour of the ground beneath it.

A layered earth wall standing on a flat desert plain.
A layered earth wall standing on a flat desert plain.
Rust-red walls of a low house seen through trees in the late sun.
Rust-red walls of a low house seen through trees in the late sun.

Schedule

Materials

  • M-01

    Rammed earth

    Site soil, 6% lime stabilised, 600 mm walls in 150 mm lifts

  • M-02

    Algarrobo

    Roof structure and shutters in local mesquite

  • M-03

    Lime wash

    Interior soffits only, to throw light deeper into rooms