Powerful Elegance

The house occupies a corner plot in northwest Buenos Aires. And this corner has something special: Like curious neighbors leaning out of the window, periscope-like balconies grow out of the façade and stretch out in different directions. The impression is captivating because they are closed at the sides, top and bottom – like loggias, tapering towards the front, providing a view through glass parapets to the fully glazed “rear walls” of the trapezoidal oriels. This expressive element not only gives the house a unique identity, but also offers residents a shaded outdoor area and weaves it into the public space.

Large windows rounding the corners are incised in the façade level. Here the boundary between inside and outside is clearly articulated. On the ground floor, however, the cantilevered element is reversed, inviting the public space into the house: The entrance is set back under the corner and the resulting overhang forms the threshold. One can look directly through the entrance door into the foyer, where the façade brick continues as interior wall cladding and the threshold theme is played out once again. Rounding it all off is a car parking space eased into the ground floor and demarcated by lattices – and here, too, the exterior and interior space intertwine.

What – besides the “periscopes” – lends the house its specific character is the gray brick dress in which it is completely encased: Laid on the wall surfaces in a stretcher bond, on the oriels in a gap bond as a visual filter and for ventilation, it creates a uniform yet differentiated surface. The combination of gray brick and black metal profiles, e.g., for windows, end strips or cladding, ensures that the dress is also elegant and puts the building’s lively massiveness into perspective. Brick makes one appear slender, one could say – or better: Any story can be told with one brick.