House in Alto Verghe by Estudio Giraudo in Sevilla Redonda, Argentina

Project: House in Alto Verghe Architects: Estudio Giraudo Location: Sevilla Redonda, Argentina Area: 2314 sq ft Year: 2023 Photos by: Marcos Núñez

House in Alto Verghe by Estudio Giraudo

The house in Alto Verghe is an architectural marvel carefully designed to inspire new perceptions of housing and construction. Located in the spectacular natural setting of Sevilla Redonda, near the city of Yerba Buena, Argentina, this single-family project redefines the approach to living and building. Deliberately divided into two levels, the first floor contains active public zones while the second floor houses quiet bedrooms. The house in Alto Verghe is not only an architectural work of art but also an invitation to a deep dialogue with its stunning surrounding environment, harmoniously blending light, space and nature.

The architectural object emerges partly from reflection and partly from criticism of modern ways of living and building. It gains value through the ability to think and allows (us) to reconsider the dialectic of the question: How are things made? And even more: How should we make them?

In this sense, the House in Alto Verghe is a single-family project located in an area with the same name, in the commune of Sevilla Redonda, near the city of Yerba Buena, Tucumán province, Argentina.

Housing is organized based on a program divided into two levels. The first floor mainly contains public zones, while the second floor accommodates bedrooms with corresponding service rooms.

As a result, this creates an external perception: the second level materializes as predominantly opaque volume consisting of several surfaces with different textures, almost suspended (supported only by a combination of thin metal columns and a few lower surfaces). Transparency dominates the lower level.

From here arises the intention to dematerialize vertical boundaries of work; walls rise two meters high, creating a strip of light that separates the first floor and mezzanine. The upper volume rests on a horizontal concrete band, separating both levels by difference in air and light, allowing internal space to be perceived as part of the landscape framed by the horizon.

The first floor functions around a large continuous space where common daily activities of an average family merge into one: cooking, eating and socializing. This wide spatial continuum is achieved through a material operation: the continuity of the visible ceiling slab, one cement finish that accompanies the guest from street to interior space, and a subtle operation of hiding metal columns among aluminum finishing.

The upper floor occupies only part of the housing surface, leaving room for natural light to penetrate through openings in the reinforced concrete structure between beams but without slabs. Functionally, this represents a sequence of rooms where rational order prevails. Here, materiality plays a crucial role in achieving well-lit spaces; opaque surfaces create intimacy while semi-transparent ones allow light penetration.

The resulting object transforms the landscape, while the landscape enters into work and becomes part of it. It becomes a research artifact of sensations where light transforms each space over time. A place for living through dialogue with its environment.

-Estudio Giraudo