Construction Diary: In Chile, a Much-Needed Addition Feels a Part of the Landscape

When Carolina Correa, founding partner of a Santiago, Chile-based branding and design studio, purchased a tiny second home on a steep forested hill in the beach resort of Zapallar, she saw it less as a finished product than the nugget of a bigger idea. "What was interesting for me was that I could make that house into a project," she explains. "My family could live in it for a while, and we could see what we needed to do to make it our own." 

The 70 square-meter house was really more of a glorified atelier. Built in 2010, its facade of window panes (repurposed from a Santiago office) gave it sweeping views over a pacific bay. Yet, there was just one small bedroom. For the first four years, Carolina’s three kids had to sleep on beds in the living room, which she converted into sofas during the day. "It was a bit like glamping," Carolina recalls.

Then, in 2021, as the kids became teenagers, she enlisted her architect brother Ignacio Correa to expand the property. He did so in a rather unusual way, building an entirely new 80-square-meter unit (with two bedrooms and one bathroom) southwest of the original house, connecting it via a bridge that snakes through eucalyptus and pine.