Santiago Viale and Associates designed a house in Cordoba, Argentina, which lies amidst lush vegetation.
The house unfolds among profuse trees and vegetation, reason why detecting the voids available became a priority, being these the configuring spaces of the social area of the house, while towards north the rectangular prism of private areas was disposed of, both connected through a circulation surrounding the main courtyard.
These design decisions pursued the objective of maintaining all of the trees that the site contained, with the purpose of achieving the least environmental impact possible.
The thermal condition was considered from the very first idea; by which it was decided to maintain the volume of vegetation from the trees above the sealing as the elemental solar protector for this. Moreover, the house presents several intermediate spaces, inherited from our colonial architecture.
All the private areas of the house were placed in a north-facing block, which has a concrete eave that allows the entry of abundant sunlight in winter and none in summer.
On the facade facing the street, to the west, a brick screening was proposed before the garages, which together form a filter conformed by a material and programmatic proposal as a protection to the strong afternoon sunlight.
Skylights were proposed in several spaces, which not only work as an element that incorporates natural light inside, reducing energy consumption; but they also lend character to the architectural language both outside and inside spaces.
The decision of maintaining the existing vegetation meant a direct relation with the constructive system chosen attempting to avoid cutting the trees as well as preventing them to interfere with their roots.