LCLA's Ocarina sits in Carmen de Viboral, a town in the Colombian highlands known for its ceramic and pottery tradition. The house is 40 square meters and serves 2 purposes: a compact residence for an artist and a gallery for his work. The program is tight, and the construction logic that holds it together is genuinely unusual.

The foundation is poured directly onto the excavated clay rather than into conventional formwork. The excavated soil becomes the mold, and the resulting slab sits on the region's characteristic clay ground rather than requiring deep concrete foundations normally mandated by seismic regulations. The house appears to float on the surface of the land rather than anchor into it. This is not a visual effect but a structural and material decision, and one that puts the building in direct conversation with the clay-working heritage of the town around it.

Within the 40 square meters, every space carries double duty. The open shower is sized and positioned to display the artist's large ceramic pieces. A structural wall that provides lateral stability to one of the long facades doubles as an irrigation conduit, channeling collected rainwater to a garden that surrounds both the new house and a renovated farmhouse adjacent to it. The roof pitches to match the farmhouse roofline, and the 2 structures are linked by a brick pathway set into the slope.

The landscape dimension of the project extends further back in time than the building itself. Trees were planted 5 years before construction began, anticipating the house's eventual footprint and scale. By the time the building was completed, those trees had grown to match the roofline, framing a defined open space that reads as distinct from the wider agricultural backdrop. The planting was part of the design from the start, not added after.