COL House
The project consists of a weekend house for a family of three, in a gated community north of the province of Buenos Aires. The layout of the community proposes a natural environment around a series of artificial lagoons, suggesting a very close relationship with suburban utopias common to other latitudes. The house is actually one of the first buildings in the area. The lack of contextual references such as a natural landscape or existing buildings led us to focus on the relationship between the empty lot, its buildable area and the gentle slope towards the lagoon, and to adopt projecting mechanisms similar to those of architectures who propose less direct dialogues with their immediate surroundings.
The program is located as an “L” parallel to one of the lots limits, orientating the longer volumes towards the lagoon and the north east. The concave face of the volume is presented to the street, generating a forecourt which works as an entrance atrium to the house. The volume facing the lagoon incorporates the living and dining room, the kitchen, an exterior gallery and the suite. These rooms have been granted a bigger height via the inclusion of a single step on the floor, which accompanies the natural slope and distinguishes them from the main circulation. The volume pointing to the north east gathers three bedrooms linked by an external gallery, enhancing the relation with the exterior and controlling the light incidence.
Materials have been chosen for their capacity to create straight, concrete planes. Industrial yellow bricks where used to materialize the closed walls, emphasizing mass and its continuity. Glass, aluminium and wood resolve the volumes which open to the exterior, offering a lighter situation. For the columns, “C” shaped Iron profiles with minimal section. The detail was thoroughly revised so that the articulation between these varying materialities was as abstract and non-hierarchical as possible.
The whole project is lead through a modular condition which helps to solve an extensive program within a limited buildable area, and to sustain certain abstract qualities within a still undefined, but highly potential landscape.
