The Argentine MOARQS and ESTUDIO OTTOLENGHI have designed this 365 sqm house for a couple with four emancipated children in a residential neighbourhood in Tigre. Its image is clearly dominated by the concrete upper band, which not only creates a screen but directs the view from the first floor to the garden, where three floral jacaranda trees grow.
Description of the project by MOARQS
The commission is a house for a couple with four grown children. The plot is located in a countryside neighbourhood with access to Route 27 and to the Lujan River, in the town of Tigre in the northern suburbs of Buenos Aires.
The project is intended to be a criticism of the type of detached-house or typical villa, which swarms today’s gated communities. The project is an attempt to rethink the land use and the relationship between "ground" and "home" in the free perimeter context in gated communities. The project takes to build the maximum possible area, as determined by the rules of the neighbourhood, and within that scope manipulates matter to build seamless space between interior and exterior.
The project seeks to close itself off as much as possible to the street and neighbours and work from a courtyard, open on the ground floor and more closed and private on the first floor, where the main living space is located - (living room, kitchen, dining room, bedroom and bathroom). The upper floor is assembled in a "U" around the inner courtyard. The decision to raise the main floor can raise the view and have better views over the water channel located at the back of the lot. This floor includes the living room, kitchen and dining room, a toilet and bedroom of marriage with bathroom and dressing. On the ground floor there are located two offices and a recreational space that connects to the garden and pool. In the patio/atrium three flower-jacarandas have been planted, which provide a significant change of color, and thus feel, to the space with the passing of the seasons.
Wide interior spaces generate cross-linked through the courtyard which is closed by the concrete beam. Concrete slabs generate eaves of 50cm on glass panels, creating protection from sun and rain and also allowing cleaning glasses. Upstairs floor boards recovered from demolition 1 "wait for 3" wide and long variables, dunks on suspenders elliotis pine 2 "x4" generating an air chamber, which produces a particular sound was placed the footsteps of traffic.
The house rests on a reinforced concrete pit -20 cm thick- and with inverted beams stiffening -70cm high. The flight of the building is solved with a mixed structure of reinforced concrete and metal columns of normal "C" profiles. The structure leads to limit the bending stress, with a system of links through servings moves the vertical supports of the beam's ends. Planed boards of "Eucalyptus grandis" -1" thick by 3" wide with long variables- were used for the shuttering of walls and beams. These tables were fixed on phenolic boards to ensure the verticality. In the construction's formwork , they were used multilaminates slabs 18mm phenolic boards with plastic finish.
