Estudio Galera Architecture has designed an extension to an existing house in Buenos Aires for a growing family with a penchant for gastronomy. An expanded kitchen – with more space for socialising, storage and seating – was required, and a pavilion in the garden opened up many more creative possibilities. Architect Ariel Galera describes the project as a ‘re-functionalisation’.
Using a bold approach to architectural form, the existing house was elevated into a space with a totally new look and feel. This was partly done by the strong use of long protruding concrete beams that define both the new extension and pavilion design.
For Galera, it was important to build a visual connection between the two – the aim was for the design to not look like an adaptation or a reproduction, yet to have its own identity in its own right. While the structures do not use the same geometry or arrangement, they are echoes of each other converse through scale, shape and materiality.
Located at the back of the site, a short walk from the house and surrounded by aged trees, the concrete pavilion was a chance to be both functional and expressive. The little out-house provides spill-over space for all the activities of the family. It is a sewing room, photography studio, pool house with grilling facilities and sometimes a guest house.
The pavilion entrance is aligned with the openings in the new extension, and it rests on a high point of sand dune that is in fact level to that of the original house. The shifting level of the ground worked to the advantage of the design, opening up an external play area for the children beneath a cantilevering beam of concrete.
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