Solid façade

Escobar House is located in Haras Santa María de Escobar, a gated community in the North corridor, approximately 54 km from the center of Buenos Aires. The neighborhood’s expansive lots are arranged around a golf course. The site for Escobar House is defined by its flat topography and a privileged rear view towards the golf course and a vast green area oriented to the North.

 

Functional Layout

Designed for a young couple, the residence was conceived as a weekend house that would eventually become their permanent home. The social area, envisioned as the heart of the house, was designed with a higher ceiling and elevated above the natural terrain to capture sweeping views of the surrounding landscape. The brief included an en suite master bedroom, two additional bedrooms for future children, and a playroom located as far as possible from the social area. The living and dining spaces open onto a semi-covered terrace adjacent to the swimming pool, allowing the house to connect seamlessly with its natural surroundings.

 

 

Design Philosophy

Constructed from exposed concrete and glass for low maintenance, the design emphasizes an integrated composition with a clear organizational and morphological unity. The main platform serves as the starting point, with the entrance and social area set slightly above the terrain, and the other rooms arranged at varying half levels. This design allows for an organic connection between spaces while maintaining their independence. A circulation and service corridor along the front of the house ensures privacy from the street for the more noble spaces, which face towards the lot’s rear. This nearly solid façade opens selectively through elongated slits, while the back of the house maintains a fluid, transparent connection with the exterior.

The supporting structure consists of two parallel inverted beams that run the length of the house. These beams are set back from the enclosing shell, both in the front and the back, highlighting the horizontality of the volume. They help organize the service corridor at the front, the social spaces, and the semi-covered deck at the rear. Views are framed as horizontal rectangles, directing the gaze towards the surrounding greenery and the golf course. To further enhance privacy and integrate the house with its environment, lines of trees were planted along the site’s boundaries.

 

 

Swimming Pool Design

The swimming pool was positioned per the client’s request, seamlessly incorporated into the house’s terrace. Its design as a rectangular plate with three cantilevered sides conceals its depth, creating the illusion of a floating mirror that reflects the sky when viewed from both inside and outside the house.

Through this design, the architects created a compact, sober volume where varying ceiling heights, lighting effects, and spatial arrangements result in diverse and inviting environments. The goal was to design a cozy home using simple lines and unembellished spaces, fostering a close and harmonious dialogue with its natural surroundings.

 

Carving out solids

Located on a small corner plot in Villa Urquiza, Buenos Aires, this single-family home is designed as an urban residence that actively engages with its immediate surroundings. Its architectural form defines the plot without fully occupying the buildable volume, reflecting a clear intent to preserve and enhance the adjacent urban voids.

 

Design Philosophy

The residence features a clean and contemporary volume, shaped by carefully positioned openings and well-considered wall configurations. The use of honest materials and crisp lines evokes a sense of simplicity, order, and serenity. Functionally, the home is organized around a large central patio and several terraces. These outdoor extensions serve as catalysts for daily life, fostering constant interaction between interior and exterior spaces.

Stereotomy is the primary architectural concept. Specifically, the house is conceived as a solid mass that has been carved out to create living spaces. Brick and concrete walls are selectively perforated to admit light and air, producing a dynamic interplay of solid and void that enriches the spatial experience. Finally, the proportions of the spaces are carefully calibrated to maintain a human scale and to harmonize with the surrounding neighborhood. The house not only serves its occupants but also contributes positively to the urban landscape, respecting and enhancing the character of the area.

 

 

Functional Organization

On the ground floor, directly connected to the street, a barbecue area provides a space for social and recreational activities. This level also includes a wine cellar -adding sophistication and utility- as well as a workshop/studio and the entrance hall, all of which open onto the patio. For privacy, the street-facing facade is shielded with a filter of micro-perforated aluminum sheet.

The first floor is the main living level, where daily activities take place. A generous living area opens onto a terrace with expansive views of the corner, visually enlarging the interior space. All rooms on this level are oriented toward the central patio, maintaining strong visual and spatial continuity. The second floor contains the bedrooms and a small studio, while the top floor houses the technical and service areas, including a green terrace and a pool -elements dedicated to recreation and leisure.

 

 

Materials & Sustainability

Vertical circulation is provided by a wooden and metal staircase overlooking the patio, which acts as the home’s dynamic center. This central patio not only organizes the internal layout but also allows abundant natural light and cross-ventilation, ensuring a bright, comfortable, and healthy environment. Additionally, sustainable design principles are integral to the project. The use of local and recyclable materials, along with a rainwater harvesting system, reduces environmental impact. The green terrace supports thermal regulation and improves air quality.

The material palette is deliberately minimal, composed of simple construction elements that come together in an elegant and subtle morphological synthesis. The result is an introspective dwelling, defined by carefully placed voids that connect with surrounding emptiness, creating a peaceful and highly functional refuge within the urban fabric.

 

Pure Volume

The house is built in a rural urbanization in the outskirts of Buenos Aires, surrounded by polo clubs and longstanding woods. Rows of willow trees cut through the terrain’s flat topography. The commission was made by a young couple with no children, wanting to build their permanent residence. They asked for a house with a pure external image and an uncomplicated inner distribution.

Building Program and Future Expansions

A single floor needed to accommodate a master suite and a second bedroom with a shared bathroom, as well as an integrated social area. The clients wanted a spacious gallery that would allow them to be in close touch with nature, as well as a swimming pool and a patio. They also requested a study for a future enlargement, in view of the possibility to include a third bedroom.
The house was designed as a pure volume. Considering the regulatory restrictions and keeping in mind a future expansion, the built area covered the lot’s whole width. A concrete platform allows one to walk over a reflecting pool and reach a semi-covered reception hall. Upon entering, a leafy inner patio behind a glass panel is immediately visible. This patio arouses the senses, expanding the views towards the back of the lot.
The path connecting the entrance, the patio and the pool in the backyard crosses the main interior circulation, which leads to the organization of the house along two axes. Facing north, the main areas open towards the exterior space through the gallery, whereas aligned service areas become part of the façade and the inner patio establishes a border between the private and social areas of the house.

Façade Design with a Wooden Latticework

The main facade’s most noticeable characteristic is its system of lapacho wooden planks, hanging vertically along the entire front. Behind this latticework, short hanging walls in combination with translucent glass, configure the inner skin of the wet spaces. The plank system harmonizes these openings and closures by creating a rhythm and organization that allows for outward gazes without being seen from the street. As these planks remain at a distance from the floor, a short black flagstone wall rises; its darkness gives the impression of a recess, which in turn makes the planks stand out from the wall, so the entire structure appears to be floating. The facade itself was intended to appear hovering above the water.

Concrete and Glazing create Opacity and Openness

Unlike the front skin, the back of the house is completely clad in transparent glass. The openness with which its joinery is designed from floor to ceiling allows for complete integration between the inside and the outside. The semicovered gallery serves as a transitional space towards the backyard and shelters the inside from direct sunlight.
The side shell is made of almost blind partitions, standing on the floor. Contrary to the other two systems, the sides of the house demonstrate the connection between the volume of the house and the terrain. The side adjacent to the street employs one of the tools used in the facade system: With the intention to allow some light to enter the house and to provide some views from the street into the social area, a series of vertical wooden planks float over the glazed pane. This way, considering the connection of this area with the inner patio, the unified living and dining rooms are sunlit and open on three sides. On the other hand, the opposite side of the house is opaque: a concrete wall and glazed panes cover the most intimate parts of the house.

Lighting Design

Lighting equipment intensifies the building’s horizontality. Inside, two sets of rails hang from the ceiling from side to side, both on the front and at the back. Also, a row of built-in lights is set along the gallery’s ceiling and floor.
Concrete Loadbearing System
The structure of the house employs a concrete loadbearing wall system that interacts with inverted T-beams, which sustain the loads and hide the system from view. The rooftop is a traditional flat roof system, including a light sloped base-floor over the slabs, concrete bed and membrane. Inside, the exposed slabs function as ceilings.
Material Palette
The bare concrete surfaces reflect their handcrafted formwork: The walls feature horizontal pine boards, but the places where the phenolic plates touched each other on the ceiling also remain visible. The clients asked for the inner walls of the private side of the house be white, so these were built with plastered bricks. The austere exposed concrete prescribes the building’s ageing process. Furthermore, the selection of materials integrates the house with its rural environment. The simplicity of the functional organization, perceivable on the floor plan, is reflected in its containing morphology: a big tunnel, made of mainly horizontal edges.