When designing the renovation of Casa Planes, the challenge was not only preserving the built heritage but also the emotional heritage of its owners. The existing building, a typical 20th-century Buenos Aires "chorizo" house, had served as a residence in the back and a commercial space at the front, both belonging to previous generations of the current owners. Preserving the house's distinctive character within the neighborhood led us to enhance the former commercial façade, now proposed as the entrance to the new residence. Designing the entrance allowed us to develop the idea of an "urban oasis": a sequence of patios with distinct uses that serve as a backdrop for the interior living spaces, while simultaneously creating a seamless flow from the interior to the exterior.

Urban Oasis:

Entrance Courtyard: Upon entering, one accesses the courtyard, formerly used as a commercial space. The spatial temporality evokes anecdotes and past stories, tales of neighbors, and family experiences. This courtyard acts as a buffer, separating the intimacy of the house from the outside world, offering glimpses into what happens inside and serving as a backdrop and extension of a study facing the street.

Intermediate Courtyard: This space acts as a lung, allowing sunlight to penetrate the heart of the house and creating a kitchen nestled within the greenery. Its shape forms a slender void; the highest point of the house is visible here. Its layout articulates the public areas of the house and the circulation routes of the three levels, creating a direct path from the entrance hall to the rear courtyard.

Rear Courtyard: Comprising a semi-covered area and a large open-air space, this courtyard aspires to be an "urban oasis." The "semi-covered" area, open to the north, acts as an extension of the interior "living room" but also as a cool outdoor space that mitigates the direct summer sun inside. The open area, which houses the pool, a reflecting pool surrounded by native plants, reinforces the idea of an "urban oasis."

Continuing with the idea of preserving the heritage, the ground floor maintains and highlights the spatial volumes of the rooms of the old "chorizo" house, with its 4 meters in width and 3.60 meters in height, its load-bearing walls, and the exposed vaulted ceiling. The pine floor, which had disappeared, was replaced with granite mosaic.

For the expansion on the upper levels, formerly an inaccessible rooftop, spaces were designed that create pathways and cross-views, allowing the "urban oasis" to be appreciated from different perspectives. For this expansion, a steel framing construction was chosen, thus lightening the load on the site.

The house unfolds like a large, uninterrupted mass of air, flowing from the ground floor to the upper levels. The new mezzanines play with their boundaries, blurring them and breaking down interior edges to connect with each other and with the exterior. The "jet"-shaped roof, reminiscent of a factory building, is the result of a deliberate design choice, resolving the upper enclosure and lending a distinctive spatial character to the playroom, the anteroom to the secondary bedrooms. The master bedroom appears to float above the garden, immersed in the tranquility of this "urban oasis."

Team:
Architects: Diego Piccinelli + Estudio Damero: Javier Bossi, Mariano Medina
Photography: Javier Agustín Rojas