Argentinean architecture office Estudio Pablo Gagliardo has designed a family residence that situates on a longitudinal land with an elegant open plan layout with long concrete roof. 

Named House CA, the 370-square-metre house shows how to take advantages of a long land with pure aesthetic. The house is located in Fisherton, a mainly residential neighborhood a few kilometers from the center of the city of Rosario, Argentina.

House CA is situated on a land, measuring 20 x 60 m lot in a regular trace, has the distinction of being the finish of an urban passage. On the east side, a built-up dividing wall creates a quite rigid boundary, and on the west, the house is defined with a garden with abundant grove, generating a blurred division of vegetation. 

"The project is proposed in order to take advantage of this situation, leaning on the dividing wall built and respecting a large existing tree, opening the environments towards the interior of the lot and integrating them with the existing vegetation," said the architects. 

The architects arrange private spaces on the front of the house, which is south oriented, while the program opens to the interior, orienting all social areas to the north and regulating the privacy of the living spaces. 

By using concrete as the main material, the structure provides the generation of continuous glazed surfaces, which alleviates the limits and integrates the garden with the interior completely and the environments between them, giving the sensation of a single space. 

"As enclosure of the entrance a mesh top is used, that is the soul of the reinforced concrete, and that with time will be covered with vegetation, simulating a concreting ‘green process," the studio added.

The program of the house is divided into two volumes, to create different characteristics, connected to each other through the entrance and a double-height hall, that distributes to the different areas of the house. 

The first volume supported on the east is a plate, of great longitudinal tension, organized in two levels that contain the daily functions of the program, including living and dining room, kitchen and main suite in ground floor, while the three bedrooms of the children are situated in the top floor. 

"The plate opens to the north and is dematerialized, first with a gallery in the ground floor, and then with another in double height, which connects the two levels, until you reach the solarium and pool at the bottom of the land."

The architects place the storage spaces on the constituted dividing wall, in order to provide more spaces in the interiors and grant greater flexibility to the spaces. 

The second volume includes the social functions of the house: a dining room height and a half, which has three fully glazed faces and a sloping concrete roof with a large blind paw to the south that folds and ends as a floor for the parking of the cars. 

"This inclination helps the rainwater run off the concrete wall, and with the pass of time, will generate a green effect on that wall, harmonizing with all existing vegetation," added the studio.

Location plan

Floor plan

Sections and elevations

Project facts

Architect(s): Pablo Gagliardo, María Eugenia Díaz

Location: Rosario, Argentina

Collaborators: Marcelo Díaz Romero, Lucía Galfione, Sebastián Larpin

Structural engineer: Sergio Faci, Federico Zegna Rata

Size: 370 m2

All images © Ramiro Sosa

All drawings © Estudio Pablo Gagliardo

> via Estudio Pablo Gagliardo