pablo senmartin's casa solar utilizes nature for climate self-regulation amid argentina ravine

pablo senmartin arquitectos completes casa solar

Pablo Senmartin Arquitectos’ Casa Solar in Argentina reflects on architecture that becomes sustainable by using all available natural resources. The family house is positioned in the depth of a natural ravine, using the cavity for its support and to reduce its visual impact from the street, as well as for protection. The existing humidity is used as a temperature difference buffer, the forest vegetation acting as a double protective facade from the sun and wind. Further, solar energy is used in a controlled manner through a mobile roof that adapts interior spatial conditions depending on the day, time, and conditions of the weather. The roof cover’s motor is activated completely at times of full solar incidence, and of graduating according to the solar radiation necessary for interior conditioning — enhancing comfort and energy savings.

The architects utilize simple, locally produced, and low-cost materials for ease of transportation and assembly. The house appears introverted, blind and austere to the south and west streetfront, with a vertical exterior produced with fiber cement plates colored in dark wood like the forest, of varied thickness and width interspersed, which reduce the impact. Inside, the use of tongue-and-groove elliotis pine wood as cladding is framed and ordered through the profiles of the exposed steel structure which is resolved with reused demolition steel profiles.

topped by a mobile roof | all images courtesy of Pablo Senmartin Arquitectos

the house utilizes all available natural resources

Casa Solar is a commission for a family that chose to live in an environment of high natural and landscape value. The house has an area of 250 square meters and is located in Villa Parque Siquiman, on a plot of 1850 square meters. The land consists of a ravine, 10 meters deep, which acts as a drain for the entire surrounding area, channeling rainwater towards Lake San Roque. The soil is rocky, interspersed with bushes and abundant mountain forest, which absorb part of the water that passes through the place. From the street, the views towards the lake are very wide and change depending on the time of day and year.

In a time of urbanization and urban sprawl, the need arises for project research to generate dialogue between architecture and nature, and to intervene in these sites with a low environmental impact — ‘where simplicity, austerity and sensitivity forge an architecture that is integrally sustainable,’ Pablo Senmartin Arquitectos notes. Casa Solar is based on the LEED v4 certification criteria, highlighting all the natural resources and materials available on the site, interacting with them in decision making.

Casa Solar houses a family that chose to live in an environment of high natural and landscape value

the steel structure cantilevers over the ravine

A structural box of steel profiles leans with the cover accompanying the slope towards the lake. The steel box allows a 3 meter cantilever towards the park, lending Casa Solar a floating appearance when seen from below, resting its columns on the existing rocks and on reinforced concrete partitions that form a transitional basement. From the street, the access is approached by a 3 meter descent, leading to an intermediate level where an esplanade/viewpoint interacts with the landscape before transitioning into the blind side of the south facade.

‘The contrast upon entering is total when coming into contact with the fluid, luminous interior social space open to the landscape,’ shares Pablo Senmartin Arquitectos. An L-shaped distribution in two directions surrounds the empty and semi-covered space that features the mobile roof. The integrated social space, with a central island kitchen, enables multiple uses and seasonal adaptations in its interior-exterior relationships, and serves as a connector with the lower basement/pool/patio area, and with the upper rest and study area.

the architecture becomes sustainable by using all available natural resources

Instead of focusing on the form as a solid, as a construction and physicality, Pablo Senmartin Arquitectos pays attention to the gap, on the form of the void that matter itself leaves free. The empty space, missing from a solid volume, is expressed as a space of the possible, a lock that, when opened and closed, controls the sunlight, the climate, the use, and the interior spatial conditions of the house. This intermediate and interstitial space highlights the environmental and visual relationships with the natural context, creating a structure that evolves over time, with life, with humanity and with architecture.

Concern for the water resource, which is scarce most of the year and respect for the natural drainage existing in the ravine are contemplated, elevating the house from the ground, allowing free runoff and permeability, nourishing layers, and the existing vegetation cover. The pools located below are filled with rainwater from the sloping roof and, being integrated into the house, provide humidity and heat in winter and freshness in summer, as well as offering the possibility of a shaded swim during the summer. Finally, gray water is treated with a biodigester and reused for irrigation of the orchard and forest.

positioned in the depth of a natural ravine