Project Credits & Specs:
- Architects: Pablo Senmartin Architects
- Photographs: Gonzalo Viramonte
- Location: Siquiman, Cordoba, Argentina
- Area: 160 m2
- Year: 2021
A reflection on our landscapes and our ways of living, brought to a contemporary logic. We explored the cave as a basement and also the dock towards the lake, just as the house is a tree during the day and a lighthouse at night.
This weekend-house results from an in-depth study on the current construction problems in our natural territory and developed under LEED v4 sustainable housing certification.
The changes generated during the pandemic promoted remote work and opened a new scenario, favoring the advance of migrations and growth in the demand for housing in environments of high landscape and natural value.
Therefore, the process proposes to delve into design, constructive, sustainable, and bioclimatic logics that incorporate new country-city relationships, reversing the historical processes of production of materials, from the extractive in situ to the low-impact dry-assembled, since The impact of our activity on the current environmental deterioration is key, construction works represent around 70% of global carbon emissions and more than 60% of the use of resources.
The house is located in the mountainous area of Cordoba, on the banks of Lake San Roque, in a context characterized by extreme environmental fragility, with periods of a long drought, large-scale fires, loss of native forest, lack of infrastructure, and Territorial anthropic footprints that have damaged the natural landscape. The lot chosen near a protected natural area, consists of a surface of 1610.69m2 and slopes of up to 8 meters, towards the coast.
Plinth-the cave
In the first place, the implementation of the house was sought through a simple structure of reinforced concrete that comes into contact as little as possible with the native soil and the existing vegetation, allowing the runoff of water naturally below and obtaining a level 0 of access. to the house at street level, thus obtaining the best views of the lake, the tectonics of the concrete dialogues with that of the rocky mantle, this space produced between the natural plane and that of the house allows the landscape to be contemplated in a protected manner, it functions as a technical area, of parking and space for meditation under the swimming pool that remains elevated just as it became a reservoir of permanent fresh air, it camouflages itself in the foliage and disappears.
Access plan – the dock
The pier allows the experience of entering into the landscape to be part of it, the wooden pier allows us to access the house at street level, and crossing the house, towards the lake, it is transformed into a terrace and solarium, ending in the pool with an infinity edge that plays in continuity with the mirror of the lake.
Raised area – the box
The plinth allows the house to be raised, and crossed by the pier, “the box” is light and ethereal with its structure of steel profiles and interior wooden surrounds.
The house has two levels. The first is linked in a linear and flexible way with the outside, the spaces for social use (kitchen, dining room, living room, terrace, solarium, and pool). On the upper floor, there is the main bathroom, bedroom, storage room, massage room, and sauna-microcinema, in addition to a home office space that overlooks the double height of the social space.
The sober and minimal image towards the street and the south-west façade, contrasts with the opening of the north-east façade, the entrance is narrow, and then passes into a double-height luminous space that works with the games reflections, and changing perceptions, accompanied by a vertical wooden filter that reduces the direct solar impact, the incidence of wind and rain on the glazed surfaces.
The incorporation of time in the architectural space, through a succession of vertical elements that accelerate the view towards the landscape, this relationship changes during the course of hours and days. The harmony of the color of the material represents an abstraction of the color of the surrounding nature.
Tectonics
An envelope is attached to the exposed steel structure in a dry way, it was carried out by means of an on-site reinforced Wood framing system, with cladding in SIDING exterior fiber cement plates, painted and sealed with water-based products stiffened with OSB plates, waterproof and thermal insulation, completing the interior 3” pine tongue and groove maintained with LINO oil.
The roof is a single roof of ventilated sheet metal, with a ceiling with double waterproof insulation and water lines that allow evaporation to be evacuated, it does not have any type of occupation or perforation, which allows zero maintenance and an easy accumulation of rainwater that accumulates in the technical room of the plinth. The thermal insulation used in this case was washed sheep’s wool.
The floors are made of pine wood planted for construction, simplicity was winning the technical decisions looking for a unique and sober image that begins to blend with the perimeter forest. Low maintenance with local recycled materials. Somehow go against some values of our time, take certain traditions, and resign in exterior expression but win in interior quality, which in the end that environmental quality is what matters when it comes to living.
The project description is provided by the architects.
About the architects:
