Bifamiliar Houses

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Architects: Office Tohme Martinez
Leader Project: Juan Tohme

Clients: Private

This bifamiliar housing project emerges from a careful reading of the site and its longitudinal condition. Rather than treating the two dwellings as isolated units, the project is conceived as a continuous architectural system, where both houses are articulated through parallel wooden volumes that respond to the geometry and orientation of the plot.

The longitudinal arrangement of the volumes allows for a series of spatial operations based on voids, light, and framing. Strategic subtractions generate patios, double-height spaces, and controlled openings that modulate natural light throughout the day. These voids are not residual spaces but active architectural devices, shaping interior atmospheres while establishing visual relationships across the dwellings.

Structural beams play a central role in defining space and perception. Rather than being concealed, they are expressed as part of the architectural language, organizing the rhythm of ceilings and reinforcing the longitudinal reading of the project. Light filters through these structural elements, creating moments of compression and expansion that enrich the spatial experience.

One of the defining characteristics of the project is the perception of the upper volumes as slightly floating above the ground. This effect is achieved through the articulation of the ground level as a recessed plane, allowing the upper floors to project outward and generate shaded galleries beneath. These transitional spaces function as thresholds between public and private realms, guiding movement while providing protection from sun and rain.

Circulation unfolds through these galleries as a continuous architectural promenade. The experience of moving through the project is marked by changing light conditions, framed views, and a gradual transition between exterior and interior spaces. The galleries are not merely corridors but spatial filters that mediate between the built form and the landscape.

Materiality reinforces the project’s conceptual clarity. A metallic structural system provides precision and efficiency, allowing for larger spans and cantilevered volumes. This structure is complemented by exposed concrete surfaces that give the project a sense of weight and permanence, anchoring it to the site. In contrast, vertical wooden slats and cladding introduce warmth, texture, and scale, softening the overall composition and establishing a dialogue with the surrounding environment.

The combination of metal, concrete, and wood is carefully balanced. Concrete defines the base and structural horizontality, wood articulates the longitudinal façades and filters light, and metal frames openings and structural connections with clarity and restraint. Together, these materials construct an architecture that is both robust and refined.

This bifamiliar project proposes a way of living based on spatial continuity, structural legibility, and controlled interaction with light. It is an architecture that floats lightly above the ground while remaining firmly rooted in its material and structural logic—where thresholds, galleries, and voids define both movement and inhabitation.