Architecture Wednesday: Chingaza Lodge

This is described as a lodge, but it’s a modern lodge, a small lodge, sitting roughly 10,000 feet above sea level in the Chingaza Moor about an hour from Bogotá.

You can’t get much further away, I think; and you can’t get more simple, more modern, more green and closer to nature.  In order to foster interactions between nature and the inhabitants of the lodge, the house is comprised of two modules connected by a glass tunnel which, at first glance is designed to give you gorgeous views of the hummingbirds garden in the east and an open view to the San Rafael reservoir to the west, but is also used  to collect heat energy from the sun to warm the spaces … perfect for a lodge sitting in an area that can get down to zero degrees at night.

With an eye toward creating a space of reflection and honest materiality, pine wood slats wrap the entire area from floor, walls and ceiling, making the interior cozy and minimalist. A large-scale window in each module complements the wooden-based interior, that not only captures daily sunsets, but also welcomes the thermal energy produced by the sun to bring warmth and comfort to those very often cold nights at this altitude.

By contrast to the wooden interior, the exterior aims to be an austere body, clad in black metal, that blends in with the gray tones of the moor sky; better still, is night, when the lodge seems to disappear because of the black façade leaving only the large windows, wood and artificial lights creating the illusion of two floating lights on the side of the mountain.

Finally, the value of the project not only in the design and an understanding of the natural habitat in which is built, but also to foster diverse encounters between its human and non-human inhabitants; the garden of hummingbirds in in the center of the two spaces, a window that offers a sunset in the moorland landscape, a west window that frames the mountains of Chingaza.

It's all about the experience. The simple lines of the space and the beauty of the mountains and the sky all through the day. I don’t think I’d ever leave.

As always, click to emBIGGERate …

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