A brick water tower now stands at the entrance to this 1980s bungalow in Santa Fe, Argentina, which has been remodelled and extended by regional firm Biagioni Pecorari Arquitectos .
Named Home in El Pinar, the constructing is the house of a couple, a single of whom has two young children who go to on weekends.
They asked Biagioni Pecorari Arquitectos to give the structure a significantly-necessary facelift, and to create a new bedroom, bathroom and kitchen.
Components of the prior mock-Mediterranean exterior were stripped back, including a curved parapet at the front and brick arches at the side, while the 54-square-metre extension was added at the rear.
“The residence was not reliable enough to create upstairs, so the undertaking had to cleverly use the current space on the ground floor to generate new places,” architect Gabriel Biagioni informed Dezeen.
Larger windows had been additional and the exterior walls had been re-plastered. But the most noticeable new characteristic is the brick tower at the front, which has storage area in its base and a water tank over.
The 6-metre-substantial tower provides a vertical counterpoint to the otherwise low-rise structure, which has walls with a height of just two.seven metres.
“It seemed interesting to include this vertical framework as a contrast to the horizontal home,” explained Biagioni, including that he chose brick to reinforce this contrast.
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“We wished to use a distinct materials, and brick was the very best decision as it relates to our local building,” he stated.
A new paved area and pool were added behind the residence. These are traversed by a beam that doubles as a gutter, extending from the house to a modest drain at the back.
“As effectively as carrying water away from the home, the beam has a spatial perform – we wanted to integrate the yard and the pool with the residence and keep away from the use of columns,” explained Biagioni.
The house was initially built in the 1980s and is divided into two wings, separated by a carport in the middle.
The smaller sized wing remains largely unchanged, with a guest bedroom that can double as a examine, a bathroom, laundry room, and a new outside clothes-drying spot enclosed by a fence subsequent to the water tower.
The more substantial wing, which was extended, is made up of three bedrooms and two bathrooms along the edge of the residence, and a kitchen, dining space and living room along the other side. An internal wall was eliminated to allow the 3 spaces to flow as one.
Brick and eucalyptus wood – which was chosen for its colour and lack of woodgrain – were added to the exterior to assist break down the mass of the white plastered walls.
Within, recycled pinotea wood was chosen for the flooring. Bricks had been also used internally, for the kitchen island and to enclose the audio-visual gear in the living space.
“We normally think about diluting the inside-outdoors separation by way of the continuation of walls and supplies within, as Frank Lloyd Wright and Richard Neutra did,” said Biagioni.
The home now has an region of 176 square metres. Development took six months, and Biagioni mentioned the finished end result provides a lesson in the value of taking away.
“This undertaking exhibits how apparently worthless construction can have hidden potential to grow to be a functional, properly-organised area,” he extra.
“Occasionally there is no need to have for complex design to make this take place.”
Photography is by Ramiro Sosa.
Project credits:
Architecture: Biagioni Pecorari Arquitectos
Project and construction management: Gabriel Biagioni and Sergio Pecorari
Collaborators: Virginia Aranda, Ramiro Sosa, Sabrina Perissinotto, Florencia Brizuela
Structural engineering: Gustavo Perini
Concept diagrams 
Floor strategy 
Roof plan 
Sections Dezeen
