S+J House

Allowing a closer experience of the pine forest, the house designed by Luciano Kruk in Costa Esmeralda, Argentina, establish a fluid relation between the inner spaces and the exterior.

S+J House is located in the seaside neighborhood Costa Esmeralda, a private development four hours away from Buenos Aires city. Despite being almost plain, the plot of land slopes softly towards its back. As the Studio proposed to preserve the lot’s dense pine grove, only the trees on the construction site were removed in order to build the house. The client, a group of two families, requested a house that could lodge both at the same time and that could be rented out.

The commission consisted of a recreation house built entirely out of exposed concrete, with minimalist interior spaces and little maintenance requirements. Special emphasis was laid on the need to establish a fluid relation between the inner spaces and the exterior, which would allow a closer experience of the forest. While both the exterior shell and the inner partitions are made of exposed concrete, the floors are made of smooth concrete. In order to emphasize the openings without confronting this material’s stony essence, dark bronze anodized aluminum was used in the framings.

The house is arranged in two staggered platforms disposed at half-height and connected through smoothly sloped ramp-like stairs and an empty space in which the pine forest becomes a part of the house. At half-height of the entrance level and set on the natural terrain, the platform at the back houses the social area, which opens into a terrace overlooking the golf court behind the plot of land. The glazed bridges connecting both platforms traverse the void space through a pines-surrounded promenade upon which light falls from the rooftop and drips through the tree branches. In this way, the forest’s vital energy is introduced into the house.