Loma House
Loma House is situated in Costa Esmeralda, a private development on the dunes of the Buenos Aires coast, 390 km from Buenos Aires and 13 km north of Pinamar. This urban complex boasts significant landscape value, where native pastures coexist with young groves of acacias and maritime pines, preserving some areas of established forest.
The project involved creating a summer house entirely built in exposed concrete, including a significant portion of its equipment. The clients allowed the studio to break this uniformity by using another material that could contrast in color and texture with the concrete, ensuring the choice required zero maintenance.
The lot, with a 22-meter front and 50-meter depth, features a young grove of maritime pines and forms part of a dune that rises abruptly (within the first 6 meters of retreat) up to 4 meters above the level of the access road. This elevation difference also exists with one of the neighboring lots. While this characteristic poses access challenges, it provides ample privacy without needing additional resources relative to the public space and one neighboring lot.
In one corner of the courtyard, subtly indicated by an eave, is the entrance door to the social area, integrating living, dining, and kitchen spaces. These are determined by the type of concrete equipment proposed. Turning through a corridor visually integrated with the courtyard, one enters the secondary bedrooms and the general bathroom.
At the end of the corridor, indicated by a light entrance, is the master bedroom with views of the street through a low horizontal opening running the length of the suite. Finally, a large window leads back to the courtyard, allowing the tour to start again. Besides the staircase access, a secondary access with quebracho boards on the natural terrain leads directly to the outdoor activities area under the grove.
Having defined the ascent to the house and room distribution to avoid all trees, it was necessary to make the entrance from the street evident. A break in the formal rigor of the volumetry was created to signal this entrance. This was achieved by slightly turning the staircase and the side of the courtyard, making part of the prism enclosing the social activities visible. The lateral partition wall’s dragging generated a volumetric distortion, clearly visible from the street.
All images courtesy of Besonias Almeida Arquitectos
