Local studio BHY Arquitectos has completed an all-white infill house with painted brick on a narrow lot in Buenos Aires, Argentina that features multiple courtyards and patios.
BHY Arquitectos completed Casa Vedia in 2023, maximizing a 138-square metre (1500-square foot) lot with a house that measures 240 square metres.
Located in the Nuñez neighbourhood, the project sits between two party walls and is only 16 metres deep, so the team needed to build up. However, a double-sloped roof diminishes the scale and helps the three-story house fit into the residential environment.
"The main aspiration was to integrate the interior spaces with the exterior in a very small lot, optimizing the quality of the interior spaces," Javier Bracamonte told Dezeen.
In addition to painted brick, the exterior has all-white details, which creates a unified look for the street-facing facade.
Also in white are the foldable, perforated sheet metal lattices that provide security and projection on top of the DVH thermal glass windows.
On the street front, a white access gate is made of folded sheet metal, creating a sawtooth texture along the sidewalk. A small garage holds the remainder of the street front.
Inside, the house is organized around two courtyards and two patios.
An entry courtyard provides access to the public ground floor, where a living room, dining room and kitchen look out to a second glazed courtyard that is located diagonally across the lot.
The second floor – which follows the interior-exterior profile of the lower level – contains the primary suite and two secondary bedrooms, with Juliet balconies and thin metal railings that overlook the courtyards.
The top floor contains a small flexible space that connects two patios, accesible through sliding glass doors.
"The light roof ends with a strong slope towards the front, giving scale to the access patio," the studio said.
The slope also creates a double-height space that opens the second-floor office space to the top level.
The arrangement of the courtyards and patios allows for cross ventilation throughout the house and brings light all the way through the interior spaces.
For the interior materials, the studio said that it used a "synthetic" approach.
"The flooring of the entire house, both inside and outside, is made of natural stone to maximize the connection."
Meanwhile the kitchen features natural oak veneered wood to give the house warmth and provide relief from the white walls and fixtures.
The studio was founded in 2016 by architects Javier Bracamonte, Julia Hajnal and Gonzalo Yerba.
In a similar all-white house in Buenos Aires, studio Colle-Croce used steel to span the lot and open as much interior space to the exterior, expanding the residents' space in a compact infill lot.
The photography is by Javier AgustÃn Rojas.
Project credits:
Designers: Javier Bracamonte, Julia Hajnal, Gonzalo Yerba
Builder: Favio Teti