Arquitectura Tierra, founded in 2015, is an interdisciplinary workshop that aims to propose avant-garde architectural and urban alternatives in a framework of harmony between human beings and the environment. For us, architecture is the composition and interpretation of human space in balance, proportion, and correspondence with nature through interdisciplinary processes. The real value of the architectural project, beyond aesthetics and function, has to do with the quality of belonging of the spaces and with the synergistic development between inhabitants and environments.
LIGHT AND MATTER
There are two fundamental resources for the production of architecture: on the one hand, light, understood as the conceptual and compositional production or as the energy and means of interpretation of matter due to physical phenomena and, on the other hand, matter, understood as the substance from which the things that surround us are made or as the resource perceptible by the senses available for the materialization of the architectural project.
Considering these resources, from the interdisciplinarity, spaces must be conceived and materialized in harmony with human beings and nature: architecture has a special relationship with the development of life, not only as a container of activities, but as the atmosphere and the space conceived so that dreams are interwoven with reality.
THE ART OF CONSTRUCTION
Architecture is not a matter of mere form and function. The construction of architectural spaces is an art that, through the correct use of materials and technique, gives birth to a project that transforms the immediate space, the environment and society.
The architect must know the specific properties of the materials and, at the same time, be able to approach the programming and application of multiple methods and constructive systems to fulfill two main objectives: on the one hand, from the interdisciplinarity, to create spaces in which they develop to fullness to inhabit individual and collective; and on the other hand, to provide sound solutions that guarantee comfort, functionality, optimization of resources, tectonic harmony, etc.
NATURE AND TIME
Architecture, in harmony with nature, must integrate the landscape: not destroy it. We believe that by studying nature and vernacular architecture, beauty can be achieved through the practicality of memory and the possibilities of innovation.
We are convinced that architecture, in proportion and appropriate correspondence between the different parts of the social, spatial and temporal context, must be able to contribute to the development of the environment. In addition, architecture must be flexible and capable of absorbing the traces of time: knowing how to age and acquire meaning over the years as part of the implementation scenario.
ARCHITECTURE, LIFE AND INNOVATION
Today, construction consumes a large part of natural resources and is responsible for 33% of greenhouse gas emissions. Buildings occupy more than 40% of all the energy produced during their life cycle. To reduce the built-in energy of new buildings, it is important not only to reduce operational energy needs, but also to pay attention to the choice of construction materials in the design phase.
For this reason, we are committed to the research and implementation of alternative construction materials and systems that, making use of advances in science and technology, allow us to reduce the levels of pollution and energy incorporated in the constructive practices.
Juan Carlos Calderón Peñafiel
Arquitectura Tierra 