Alejandra House
ALEJANDRA HOUSE
Cekada-Romanos Arquitectos
Text description provided by architect.
The house is located in a neighborhood not yet fully developed on the outskirts of Rosario. The landscape has the rural character of the Pampas, with fields and orchards along with warehouses and criollo brick kilns (namedfor the vernacular technique of fabricating clay bricks by hand).
The design strategy looks for a compact country house, located on the south side of the lot in order to capture sunlight and to open a large garden area.
The shape is the result of a volume subjected to cuts and operations of subtraction. The geometry is defined by orientations, desired visuals and daylight. The ground floor, for family gatherings, grows in height with a pitched roof that generates a double height space.
The upper floor, for intimate uses, moves toward the end of the lot to generate the back porch on the ground, where the barbecue area relates with the swimming pool.
This brick was chosen for its low cost and its rustic surface. The brick defines morphology, texture and modulation.
We use a double load-bearing masonry wall, a cavity wall for thermal reasons, whosebond consists of one row of stretchers and one row of stretchers laying on their edge.
This pattern allows modulating joints, staircase steps, slab thickness, window dimensions and light fixtures.
The brick was used as permanent formwork in the porch and as final layer of the roof assembly, its texture defining the ceiling and the roof. The house thus aims to be another solid pile of bricks on the landscape.
