Designed by BAK Architects, The 20m x 30m plot of land in the coastal Mar Azul forest in Buenos Aires, Argentina is the site for BAK Architects’ JD House, a residence designed in concrete, wood, and glass and blended into the topography and vegetation on the site. The preliminary specifications for the house required two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and a large, flexible social area, integrated into the kitchen, that could accommodate different activities for the guests that are expected to visit. The client also specified that generous outdoor expansions were available on the site.
Photography: Gustavo Sosa Pinilla
The land on which the house is situated follows a gentle slope that provided a welcome challenge for the design of the house. In relationship to the street level, the house sits very high above the ground in order to adjust to the level changes on the site. This provides a heightened condition of privacy, as passersby are less able to see into the house from the street, and a vantage point from which the inhabitants can view out onto the landscape over neighboring houses. Photography: Gustavo Sosa Pinilla
The house was conceived as two pure prisms, located in a clearing among trees of various heights, as intersecting perpendicular forms that joined at half levels. The slope was once again used to the advantage of the proposal to hide parts of the program, thereby reducing the presence of the building on the site. The form that developed from the conjoining of ...