This new Buenos Aires home was designed around three decisive pillars: light, matter and time. The 140 sq m residence, House JR, is located in one of Argentina’s more affluent neighbourhoods, San Isidro, and is named after the client’s initials.
‘The initials also became symbolic during the process – representing the idea of a more essential way of living, aligned with a simpler, more direct relationship with nature,’ explains Gonzalo Bardach, lead architect on the project, and founder of his namesake studio.
‘The project was not driven by a singular image, but by an intention to construct a way of inhabiting,’ Bardach continues. ‘From the beginning, we were interested in working with materiality and atmosphere as the primary tools – shaping spaces through light, thickness and time rather than through form.’
Together with his team, he explored how warm pigmented concrete could create an environment that feels both grounded and intimate. The residence comprises thick walls and flowing planes, opening up to the surrounding landscape. Upon entering, the residence unfolds as a sequence of atmospheres, where light is filtered and displaced, creating a gentle interplay between shadow and light.
However, the pigmented concrete element was what proved to be a main challenge for the architect, as he tells Wallpaper*: ‘The colour, texture and execution had to be carefully controlled so that the material could operate not only as structure, but as an atmospheric element. Overall, we achieved both technical consistency and the intended spatial effect.’
In terms of the home's arrangement, daily life is situated on the ground floor, which expands effortlessly into the outdoor spaces. With an abundance of planted and terraced al fresco areas, the outdoors is welcomed in. The open spaces have been conceived to feel as one with the rest of the home.
Says Bardach, ‘The house is designed to be discovered slowly – through changes in light, scale and material. Ideally, it generates a sense of calm, where the relationship between light, matter and nature becomes perceptible, and time feels present.’
House JR is cinematic, capturing snapshots of the passage of time and the changing climate outdoors. It offers a calming display of materiality, light and landscape, and how they intertwine.
Bardach concludes, 'There is a particular moment where filtered light enters through the concrete planes and interacts with the vegetation; that continuous dialogue between light, material and landscape is, for me, the essence of the project.’