Olive House by TATU Arquitectura in Montevideo, Uruguay

Project: Olive House
Architects: TATU Arquitectura
Location: Montevideo, Uruguay
Area: 2,798 sq ft
Photos: Marcos Guiponi

Olive House by TATU Arquitectura

TATU Arquitectura completed the Olive House project, located in a beautiful setting in Montevideo, Uruguay. This luxurious modern house occupies two levels and has just under 3000 square feet of elegant living space. The interiors open onto a wonderful terrace and garden, privacy ensured by a surrounding wall.

Client

The client is a young couple with two small children, and their request was to build their first home, one that is custom-built and designed for life. They wanted a house with "unique space," integrated and flexible on the first floor. A spacious kitchen, a double-height living room, an unusual space that can be used as a desk daily or as a projection of the living room for special events. An inner courtyard and a separate service block. On the upper floor - private rooms, with the main bedroom above all others featuring a bathroom, wardrobe and its own terrace.

Space

For the client's conditions we decided to make some changes that strengthen spatial sequences and stimulate usage through flexible interior expansion and segmentation without difficulty, departing from too geometric functional schemes. The first includes the transition from outside to inside through a limited space created by the projection of second-level volumes, forming two covered entry areas – an extension of internal space into a zone protected from sun and rain, with a covered entrance for interaction with the street, a pergola and barbecue for connection to the terrace and pool in the background. Semi-interior zones significantly increase the useful area of the house.

After entering, circulation revolves around an inner courtyard and a staircase that contrasts the main entrance of the house at the back, thus connecting the upper floor directly to the dining-living room and blurring the perception of a passage space. At the same time, window slabs accompanying the entrance provide full thickness to the first floor and its operation throughout the plot.

The second relates to double height above the living room, which connects kitchen and dining area through sliding partitions capable of isolating and opening public spaces to create the necessary flexibility. The upper floor is integrated into the system through an internal balcony platform that concludes circulation in a small hall to the main room.

Materials

In choosing the material color palette, highlighting expressive and durable style through textures and own colors was a priority, which ensured consistency across different surfaces. Thus, exposed concrete was used as the common factor throughout the concept, varying between polishing by helicopter, hand-finishing of concrete and various compositions of exposed concrete flooring. The external shell consists of a double brick wall that only reveals its composition in the main dual space, where it was decided to keep the texture of unrendered brick visible without plaster. White marble, wood and brick surfaces complete the final composition.

For construction we chose to work with minimal beams and columns in favor of enhancing the expected sense of flow on the floor. Concrete overhangs reaching 4 meters without support to the backyard complement spatial continuity with the outside world. Finally, first-floor windows lift the second level to create a formal illusion; the second level "rises" on large glass surfaces.

–TATU Arquitectura