estudio galera's casa jacaranda is a cluster of growing, expanding boxes

estudio galera designs the ‘jacaranda house’ as a vacation home in buenos aires to be occupied at any time of the year. it is sited in an irregular corner lot on the verge of two zonings — multifamily and single-family dwelling. the house is presented as the size of a hotel with the space and interior scale of a house. the project stands as a transitional nexus between different scales, typologies and area uses. the design team introduces the project as a collection of concrete boxes that are grouped, stacked, and skewed. the boxes can grow, shorten, and expand based on the program. this exercise generates great flexibility and ensures versatility on the project proposal.

all images by diego medina

with the ‘jacaranda house’, estudio galera develops three levels with a structural logic that is inverted, informed by the needs of the program. the boxes are stacked from the smallest, buried at the ground level, to the largest on top. they rest and hang in a structural game of gantries, tensioners, and beams. contrasting with the connection to the street, the strategy in the interior is of a full opening, both in the treatment of the shape and in the space delimitation. two built wings preserve the patio while generous glass panels hidden in the partitions generate continuity between the public areas of the house and the barbecue grill, swimming pool and solarium areas. this, in turn, generates an intimate, home environment sited a hundred meters from the beaches of downtown buenos aires.

the skewed volumes of the ‘jacaranda house’ introduce scale to circulations and patios that circumvent and guard the existing pines. the swimming pool, which is reached by the sunlight to the west, stands as an appendix to the house. the windows, curved as hollows in the walls, conceal the interior while turning the landscape into framed pictures when seen from the inside. the perimeter becomes a hollow eighty centimeter concrete mass. exposed concrete is the sole material of this project and it is worked with different formwork. the material is selected ass it never ages and does not require great maintenance since it looks as it is from the very beginning: without coating or ornaments, simple and imperfect.