Casa Frente Al Lago by Nicolas Pinto da Mota

Photographer: Fernando Schapochnik

The Site
The house is implanted on a plot on the outskirts of the city of Buenos Aires, within a typical private neighborhood. A recognizable archetype, a rectangular base prism that controls its scale in an environment characterized by its strong relation to a lake.

With a slight slope in the lot, the dwelling is positioned in the North-South longitudinal direction, evidencing its more favorable and permeable side. This starting point has defined the spatial configuration of an inner - outer relationship, which in this case is given by the orientation of lodges of various scales that compose a large volume.

The Shape
This theme is of vital importance, either by hollowing a solid, compartmentalizing a single volume, juxtaposing several or distributing the program into a series of separate volumes, all have the same purpose, to express the volumetry of the building in a humble and serene way.

In this case the volumetric composition is achieved by a regular matrix that finds differentiated scales in the typical programmatic components of the dwelling. These components are expressed through the relation of the lodges that shape the volume. This intermittence identifies the scales of the various domestic uses, lodges of four, eight; single or double, allow these spaces to have controlled visuals facing the lake, cross ventilation and fine sunlight. This controlled and precise system, evidences a spatial expression of great formal efficiency

The Material
The mass architectural production of the region is tied to a workforce that has its greatest skills linked to brick masonry or in-situ concrete. These materials display monolithic aspects that due to their density and dimensions, better express the idea of permanence.

This subject, as well as the use of a material in function of the geometric clarity of the spaces and the continuity of the same ones, are of vital interest. In this sense, the priority interest is not in what is built but in the space that is defined and shaped by this construction.Thus the fine finish and white color on all its surfaces determines the characteristic space of this dwelling.

Nicolas Pinto da Mota

Photographer: Fernando Schapochnik