Construction Diary: The Site Was Small, So They Put the Garden on Top of the House
Plants grow all around—and on the roof of—the multilevel Buenos Aires home an architect and a textile company cofounder built on a 26-foot-wide lot.
Plants grow all around—and on the roof of—the multilevel Buenos Aires home an architect and a textile company cofounder built on a 26-foot-wide lot.
On a narrow lot in San Isidro, a residential area of Buenos Aires on the banks of the Río de la Plata, architect Ángel Jorge of Ábode Arquitectos and his wife, Rocío Noya, set out to build a family home immersed in greenery despite its compact footprint. With just 1,700 square feet of usable land, their response was to build vertically—three stories, plus a basement—while finding room for nature at every turn: a front yard with a slender pool, a densely planted rear patio, and two tiered green roofs.
A portrait of architect Ángel Jorge and his wife, Rocío Noya, who owns a rug design company called Awanay. The couple live with their eight-year-old daughter and Jorge’s two older daughters.
Photo by Félix Niikado
Inside, fully retractable glass walls connect the ground level to the outdoors, making the house feel far more expansive than its dimensions suggest. Here, Ángel explains how the project took root.
A Place Near the River
We were living in an apartment and decided to look for land in San Isidro. My wife, Rocío, and I live with our eight-year-old daughter and my two daughters from a previous marriage, who are in their twenties. Most of us are into water sports. One of my daughters sails, another windsurfs, and I windsurf a little bit too, so we already had ties to this neighborhood along the river, which has lots of nautical clubs.
Built on a compact lot near the Río de la Plata, the couple’s 1,992-square-foot, three-story house maximizes outdoor space through a series of planted terraces and patios distributed across three different levels.
Photo by Félix Niikado
The exterior of the house is clad in charred kiri wood, inspired by the Japanese yakisugi technique. On the second level are three bedrooms and a family room with a small balcony.
Photo by Félix Niikado
See the full story on Dwell.com: Construction Diary: The Site Was Small, So They Put the Garden on Top of the House
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