PELICANO House / Estudio Galera

Architects: Estudio Galera
Location: Cariló, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina
Area: 293.0 sqm
Year: 2015
Photographs: Diego Medina – dcfotografia

Planning And Project Direction: Galera Studio
Design Team : Ariel Galera, Diego Ballario, Cesar Amarante
Collaborator Architect: Horacio Riga
Collaborator: Veronica Coleman
Surveyor: Claudio D´eramo
Structural Engineer: Engineer Javier Mendia
Texts: Francisco Villamil
Translation And Text Editing: Soledad Pereyra
Contractor: Acosta-Audine

From the architect. The project was designed around a specific design problem: to satisfy functional, aesthetic, and semantic needs.

The house, situated on a 1032 m2 corner lot in the city of Cariló, is lifted above the natural terrain level due to the low height of the terrain and the area’s restrictions on modifying the natural topography. This creates an indirect link -visual rather than functional- between the house and the lot.

The program is divided into two wagons, separating the private from the social areas.

These wagons, which are placed in an L shape and are separated by half a level, open to the garden at the front façade as it engages the street.

The hierarchical access created by the house height and the various entrances of sunlight become the link between the different architectural volumes. This disposition offers flexibility of use to the residents of the house and protects their privacy.

The play of sunlight created over the different textures, which was paramount in the development of the project, makes the architectural experience rich to the senses and variable through time. Oblique pergolas, roof fenestrations, ground level windows, bars of acrylic in concrete walls, repetitive columns which protect the kitchen, and the rhythmic brisolei which gives privacy to the bathrooms create daily games of sun and shades.

The use of materials in their natural state produces chromaticity and gives a rich tactile and visual texture. At the same time, the predominance of concrete generates a visual unity amongst the blocks, stone, and timber, granting a natural touch of warmth and ruggedness.

The house is an articulated and dynamic composition that plays with axis, scheme, skew, and rhythm.