You might have glimpsed the three thirty-something couples laughing and strolling through the Santiago, Chile, district of Las Condes over the last few years. They would invariably steer toward the French restaurant Baco, where the conversation always took a turn toward brainstorming: Will our front patios be partitioned off, or will the kids be free to run between them? Should we enclose the upstairs landings?

The friends alternated wine-pouring duties—the surgeon taking turns with the Olympic hopeful, the psychologist, the agronomist, and the journalist—while the ringleader of the group could be counted on to produce pencil and paper, transcribing their ideas into drawings. His compatriots would sign off on the agreed-upon sketches, and they would all disband with the same cheer with which they started.

So many neighbors have stopped at the steel-slatted fence to chat about the architecture that a local radio station invited Cristián to discuss the design process on air. " layout="" credit="Photo by Cristóbal Palma" photoUserId=""/>

Architect Cristián Izquierdo first orchestrated these lubricated design meetings in 2018, about a year after his toddler son started wanting to explore outside the family apartment. He and his wife, psychologist Magdalena Sánchez, known as Maida, began to hunt for a new home with outdoor space. They could have found something with a patio in Las Condes within their price range, but hardly the open-interior home with outdoor space they hoped for.

As the couple became disillusioned with their real estate search, an idea emerged: Why not invite several friends to fund a company through which they could apply for financing and develop land for the group? The setup would allow Cristián to design from the ground up, and the business would convert into something resembling a condominium association after construction.

Cristián was working on a similarly financed project involving his brother Luis, a contractor, so he already had proof of concept. The property search began anew, this time uncovering an unextraordinary 1980s house on a corner double lot ripe for redevelopment. “So we gathered a group of people, and we bought the plot,” Cristián says. “It was a strategy for living affordably in the city on our own terms.”

The rectangular site was zoned for low-rise, high-density construction. In order to stretch the group’s pesos as far as possible, Cristián maxed out the buildable area, designing a long, two-story, bar-shaped volume that encloses a little less than 14,000 square feet. Then, he sliced it into five rowhouse-style units. As for what to do next, he says, “We needed to arrive at one conclusion that everyone could agree on, or the construction costs would have gone sky-high.”

At their first planning dinner at Baco, Cristián and Maida were joined by Maida’s cousin Paula Montero and her husband, José Miguel Zúñiga (the journalist and the surgeon). The two couples quickly landed on several guiding principles, such as eschewing walled front patios so the families could socialize freely.

Another unanimous decision was to erect a slatted fence, rather than a typical solid wall, along the sidewalk, allowing for more connection to the street and surrounding neighborhood. “Maida and I dreamed about this so much, but it was never the right time,” Paula remembers. “Then one day, we go to dinner, Cristián started to sketch on a napkin, and now the building is really how he drew it.”

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Feeling energized by the kickoff meeting, Cristián created an individual house template that further emphasized togetherness. For each ground floor, he conceived a foursquare configuration in which the kitchen and family room are on either side of the entry and staircase, and the living/dining room faces the private patio in back.

In addition to minimizing corridors, Cristián swapped walls for built-in lattices to create a connection between rooms. Upstairs would emphasize privacy, with the primary bedroom occupying the back of the house and two smaller suites flanking the stairs.

During the earliest days of the design phase, athlete María José Echeverría (who goes by Coti) and agronomist Diego Moraga joined the group of friends turned investors. Coti’s friend (who is also the daughter of Diego’s godfather) and her husband signed on in 2019, and they got to weigh in on kitchen and closet designs at Baco. Cristián brought in the fifth couple closer to construction completion this past October.

The friends jokingly call Cristián a dictator for insisting on lattices for the first floor rather than walls, but in spite of minor creative disagreements, these co-developers are tighter than ever. Now that quarantine has extended into the Chilean summer, at least half a dozen kids from the complex wander daily to Cristián and Maida’s unit, where a pool is sunk into the rear patio. “They have turned into cousins more than neighbors,” Coti says, adding with a wink that the youngsters have benefited from ground rules established collectively by their parents.

As for the grown-ups? Their feelings about move-in range from appreciation for the floor-to-ceiling windows to relief at the sharing of childcare duties. But what rings most loudly is the delight at the ease and frequency with which the unlikely business partners are barbecuing together, supporting one another’s parenting, and generally growing closer. “I really wanted to live in a community, but I really didn’t know what it was,” Paulasums up. “And I love it.”

Project Credits:

Architecture: Cristián Izquierdo

General Contracting: Tecton

Structural Engineering: Luis Soler P. y Asociados

Civil Engineering: Juan Erenchun

Landscape Design: Nicolás Allamand +56.9.8528.2828

Lighting Design, Interior Design, and Cabinetry Design: Cristián Izquierdo

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Architect Cristián Izquierdo Builds a Multifamily Complex—and Instant Community—in Santiago