Lotecircular Splits a Maitencillo Hillside House into Independent Timber Platforms Angled at the Valley

POCHA House, completed in 2018 by the Chilean studio Lotecircular with Gabriel Fernández as architect in charge, sits on an 840 m² sloping lot near the beach in Maitencillo. The brief came with two pressures. The client wanted as much built area as the lot would allow, and the site faces south, so the best views and the sun come from opposite directions. The finished house covers 176 m² and does not resolve these as one compact volume. It breaks into a set of timber platforms, each at its own height and its own angle.

The platforms are what make the project worth a close look. The house is not one structure bent to follow the hill. Each platform is structurally independent and connects to the others only in space. Lotecircular has turned topography, regulations and orientation into one design method: rotate each piece until it finds a view, then deal with the joints. The house reads less as an object on the slope and more as a series of lookouts that happen to hold rooms.

A House Broken into Platforms

From above, the strategy is easy to read. Grey metal roofs fan out at different angles over timber decks, and the footprint never settles into a rectangle. None of this is a formal gesture for its own sake. The architects describe each rotation as a way to aim a room at a different stretch of the valley. Some edges come from setback and boundary-distance rules rather than from views, and we think that mix is healthy. The geometry does not pretend everything came from poetic intent.

At dusk the fragmentation becomes legible in another way. Warm windows sit in separate pieces, deck stairs drop between levels, and a fenced fire pit terrace pulls the outdoor life down the slope. The house works like a small settlement of rooms, not a single box with a view.

Timber Skin, Stepped Ground

Timber carries the whole project. Treated wood and round logs, or rollizos, came from the local supplier Concón Maderas Impregnadas, and the plank cladding weathers in greenish natural tones. Against the dry scrub and the eucalyptus behind, the volumes look closer to the landscape than a rendered or painted finish would.

The ground plane matters as much as the walls. Stepped retaining beds turn the slope into usable garden terraces, and the raised deck lets the house float over the grade rather than cut into it. The architects also left room for future expansion beneath the structure. On a tight budget and a steep site, that is a useful bet: the platform system gives the house space to grow without a second round of earthworks.

Rooms Set at Their Own Angles

Inside, the non-orthogonal plan shows up at the corners. One upper room has timber-framed windows, one of them set on a diagonal, that look across to a neighbouring plank-clad wing. Because the platforms turn against each other, the house constantly frames parts of itself. You see the building from inside the building, and that gives a modest floor area a sense of depth.

The upper hallway shows how far the material palette is pared back. A reclaimed timber counter sits on a half wall under whitewashed rafters, with a copper pendant as the only warm metallic note. The whitewash matters here. It brightens a timber interior that could easily have turned dark and heavy, especially on a site where the view faces away from the sun.

Light from Behind, Views in Front

In the Southern Hemisphere a south-facing slope is a problem: the valley view and the sun sit on opposite sides of the house. Lotecircular's answer is to draw north light in from the back while the main openings face down the valley. The kitchen shows it best. Tall narrow windows above the wooden stair let in afternoon sun, and a steel-legged timber counter and a pellet stove anchor the space for the cooler coastal months.

The bedroom is quieter: a low wooden bed, whitewashed plank floor, pale wardrobe doors and small timber-framed windows. Not every room needs the big view, and the smaller openings here feel deliberate, a retreat from the outward-facing platforms.

Plans and Drawings

The site plan confirms what the aerial suggests. Bedrooms gather around a central living area, the deck and garden beds extend the plan outward, and the fire pit sits at the far edge of the inhabited ground, all inside the lot boundary. Read next to the drone shot, the drawing shows how much of the angular footprint is driven by the edges of the lot. The architects named the hardest part of the job as the joints, where platforms and volumes meet at non-orthogonal angles. The plan makes it clear how many of those junctions there are.

Why This Project Matters

POCHA House shows a sensible way to build a small house on a difficult coastal slope. It does not grade the site flat or force a single volume onto it. Instead it splits the program into independent timber platforms, each tuned to a view, a level and a regulatory edge. Separating the structure keeps each piece simple to build. The complexity moves to the joints, which is where a careful architect can best manage it.

It is also a reminder that orientation problems can drive form. A south-facing lot in Chile works against the usual instinct to put views and sun on the same side. Lotecircular's response, north light from behind and valley views in front across rotated platforms, is specific to this site, and that specificity is what we value most. The house could only be here.

POCHA House by Lotecircular (architect in charge: Gabriel Fernández). Location: Maitencillo, Chile. Area: 176 m². Year: 2018. Photography: Felipe Cantillana and Gabriel Fernández.

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