Interior Exterior Magazine Submission Form
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Firm Logo |
Included in the Dropbox folder (LOGO_Final.pdf) |
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Designed by/ Firm Name : |
TDI ARQ – Tomás de Iruarrizaga |
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Address: |
Quebrada Honda 11 B, Llanquihue |
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Phone |
+56 9 8409 6478 |
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Email Id (For any inquiry) |
dirrua@gmail.com |
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Firm’s Website |
www.tdiarq.cl |
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@tdiarq |
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Other (If have any) |
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Architect’s photo: |
Included in the Dropbox folder (foto arquitecto 2.jpg) |
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Project Details |
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Heading: |
Refugio Calfuco: a timber tower in the Valdivian rainforest |
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Short Brief Of The Project (75- 120 words) |
A 54 m² vacation shelter near Valdivia, Chile, conceived as a narrow timber tower raised on concrete piers among the trees of the Valdivian rainforest. Its 4 x 7 m plan rises ten meters toward the canopy: bedrooms and bathroom below, an open living and kitchen space above, facing the northern light. A gabled roof with a diagonal ridge beam crowns the volume, while laurel-clad interiors work as continuous built-in furniture, like the inside of a boat. The structure was cut and built on site using only traditional carpentry tools. Nominated for ArchDaily Building of the Year 2026. |
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Project Type |
Residential – vacation cabin |
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Project Name : |
Refugio Calfuco |
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Location : |
Valdivia, Los Ríos Region, Chile |
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Client Name: |
Private client |
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Principal Architect & Designer: |
Tomás de Iruarrizaga |
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Design Team : |
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Consultants for the Project |
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Civil: |
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Automation: |
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Interior Designers: |
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Landscape Consultant: |
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MEP & HVAC Consultants: |
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Contractors: |
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Lighting Designers: |
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Acoustics Consultants: |
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Environmental & Sustainability Consultants: |
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Project Managers: |
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Quantity Surveyors: |
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Interior Styling: |
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Carpentry: |
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Structural Consultant: |
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Façade Engineering: |
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Site Contractors: |
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FACT BOX |
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Year Built : |
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Site Area : |
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Carpet area : |
54 m² |
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Photography |
Federico Cairoli |
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Project Cost Appx : |
Not disclosed |
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Material Palette of the project |
Timber structure; laurel wood interior cladding and built-in furniture; concrete piers |
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Targeted over to Fit outs |
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Products/Materials/ Brand Name |
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Finishes |
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Wall Covering /Cladding |
Laurel wood (interior) |
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Concrete |
Concrete piers (foundations) |
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Tiles |
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Marble |
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Ply |
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Glass |
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Laminates |
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Acoustical material |
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Lighting |
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Doors and Partitions |
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Sanitaryware |
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Flooring |
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Furniture |
Built-in laurel wood furniture, designed by TDI ARQ |
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Windows |
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Facade Systems |
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Kitchen |
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Paints |
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Artifacts |
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Wallpaper |
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Hardware |
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You can
provide any other which is not mentioned
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Images
High quality images must be submitted
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Must be submitted as zip folder/ drive folder link/
mega file share link/ we transfer link/ dropbox
Project
Description:
(It should minimum 850 words)This small 54 m²
shelter is located near Valdivia, on Chile's Pacific coast, nestled within the
dense and humid Valdivian rainforest. The client sought a small cabin for
vacation use, and the main challenge was to reinterpret the well-established
concept of a traditional cabin.
The Valdivian rainforest is one of the few temperate rainforests in the world.
It is a place of constant rain, deep shade and intense vegetation, where light
reaches the ground only in fragments. Building there means accepting that the
forest, not the house, sets the rules. Rather than clearing a large area to open
views, the project looks for the opposite: to touch the ground as little as
possible and to search for light by rising vertically.
Site and strategy
We proposed a very narrow tower, raised off the ground on concrete piers,
oriented toward the northern light and occupying a minimal footprint. The plan
is a small rectangle — four meters wide by seven meters long — that fits snugly
between a cluster of trees, rising ten meters from the ground up to the canopy.
Raising the volume on piers keeps the building away from the humidity of the
forest floor, allows water to run freely beneath it and leaves the existing
vegetation almost untouched. The small footprint was not only an aesthetic
decision but also a way of reducing the impact of construction in a fragile and
difficult-to-access environment.
Program and section
The structure is divided into two very compact floors. The first level includes
a small entrance hall that doubles as a corridor connecting the bedrooms, the
single bathroom, and the staircase. The second level features an open-plan
space combining the living area and kitchen, which feels spacious and noble as
it opens toward the landscape.
The section is the true protagonist of the project. Interior heights shift
between the minimum needed to move comfortably and dimensions that acknowledge
the surrounding scale of the forest. The private rooms below are intimate and
protected, close to the ground and the dense foliage. The common space above is
generous and luminous, placed at the height where the light finally breaks
through the canopy. Moving upward through the house is, in a sense, a short
journey from the shade of the forest floor to the light of the treetops.
Form
The form is conceived as a compact, sharply defined volume — a prism with acute
angles that stands in stark contrast to the natural surroundings. Instead of
trying to imitate the forest, the shelter assumes its condition as a precise,
man-made object placed among the trees. Its abstraction makes the richness of
the vegetation around it even more evident.
The gabled roof features a diagonal ridge beam running across the volume like a
fishbone spine. This simple geometric gesture transforms the perception of the
interior: the roof planes twist slightly, the ceiling becomes dynamic, and the
upper living space gains a singular, almost sculptural character.
Interior and materials
The interiors, clad in laurel wood, are warm and tactile. Everything feels like
built-in furniture, much like in boats, where frames and keels are exposed. Linings,
shelves, benches, the kitchen and the staircase are part of the same continuous
system, so that there is no clear boundary between architecture and furniture.
Every centimeter is used, and every surface has a purpose.
This continuity between cladding and furniture is what gives the shelter its
particular atmosphere. Living inside it resembles living in a cabin of a ship:
a compact, carefully crafted interior where the material surrounds the body and
where the views to the outside are framed with precision.
Construction
The entire structure was cut and built on site using only traditional carpentry
tools, without any digital fabrication methods. This decision responded both to
the remote location of the site and to a conviction: that a small building can
achieve great precision through the knowledge and care of skilled carpenters.
The construction process thus became a dialogue between design and craft. The
details were developed to be executed by hand, with simple joints and
straightforward assembly sequences, making the most of local knowledge of
timber construction in southern Chile.
Light and views
On the lower level, windows are small and frame close-up views of trunks, ferns
and moss, reinforcing the sense of shelter. On the upper level, the openings
grow and turn toward the north, capturing the scarce sunlight of the rainforest
and offering long views. The changing weather of the south — rain, mist and
sudden clear skies — becomes part of daily life inside the shelter.
A small house as a manifesto
With only 54 m², the shelter proves that a small building can offer a rich
spatial experience. Its value does not lie in size or luxury, but in the
precision of each decision: where to stand, how high to rise, how to let in the
light, and how to build with the hands of those who know the material.
Recognition
Refugio Calfuco was nominated for ArchDaily's Building of the Year 2026 and has
been published in several international media. The project summarizes the main
ideas of the practice: a minimal footprint, a strong relationship with the
landscape, and timber architecture in which construction, interior and
furniture are conceived as a single whole.
He is the founder of TDIARQ, an architectural practice focused on the design of
timber dwellings, with a strong emphasis on projects located in rural and
natural environments in southern Chile. His work is characterized by a pursuit
of constructive precision, a sensitive relationship with nature, and the
adaptation of contemporary technologies grounded in a deep understanding of
traditional building methods.
In Tomás de Iruarrizaga’s work, shaped by his training in industrial design,
the sequential logic of traditional architectural processes is often subverted.
The starting point is not always the program, the site, or the plan; sometimes,
it’s the modulation of a single element, a widely available material; in
others, a lightweight unit or a viable cost threshold for serial production.
And in other cases, the design naturally emerges from territorial conditions or
classic architectural variables.
Each project, therefore, presents its own problem and activates a particular
set of formal, technical, and economic strategies. This methodological
flexibility is driven by a desire to find, in each commission, a productive,
constructive, and cultural logic that is coherent with its context.
This small 50 m² shelter is located near Valdivia, on Chile’s Pacific coast, nestled within the dense and humid Valdivian rainforest. The client sought a small cabin for vacation use, and the main challenge was to reinterpret the well-established concept of a traditional cabin.
We proposed a very narrow tower, raised off the ground on concrete piers, oriented toward the northern light and occupying a minimal footprint. The plan is a small rectangle — four meters wide by seven meters long — that fits snugly between a cluster of trees, rising ten meters from the ground up to the canopy.
The structure is divided into two very compact floors: the first level includes a small entrance hall that doubles as a corridor connecting the bedrooms, the single bathroom, and the staircase. The second level features an open-plan space combining the living area and kitchen, which feels spacious and noble as it opens toward the landscape. Interior heights shift between the minimum needed to move comfortably and dimensions that acknowledge the surrounding scale of the forest.
The form is conceived as a compact, sharply defined volume — a prism with acute angles that stands in stark contrast to the natural surroundings. The interiors, clad in laurel wood, are warm and tactile; everything feels like built-in furniture, much like in boats, where frames and keels are exposed. The gabled roof features a diagonal ridge beam running across the volume like a fishbone spine. The entire structure was cut and built on site using only traditional carpentry tools, without any digital fabrication methods.
