10 House is located in San Rafael, a gated community in Tigre, 30 km away from the City of Buenos Aires. The development’s main asset is its lagoon, which baths the rear edge of the house garden, defining the most important feature of the commission landscape to take into account. Its surface is 907m2 with a front of 24 meters wide, which is reduces in the background to 17 meters and its depth is 44 meters.
Location: Dique Luján, Buenos Aires Province
Architect: Arch. Luciano Kruk
Construction: Constructora Correa
Project Manager: Arch. Belén Ferrand
Construction Manager: Arch. Belén Ferrand
Collaborator: Arch. Andrés Conde Blanco – Denise Andreoli
Photos: Daniela Mac Adden
Land area: 907m2
Built area: 306m2
Construction year: 2019
The commission was made by a young couple that wanted to build a 300m2 permanent residence. They were interested in our studio’s aesthetic proposal, taken by the low maintenance that a concrete structure grants.
The clients wanted the exterior to be kept as concrete, while the interior would consist of white walls alongside a handful of concrete elements.
Their programmatic requirements consisted on a large double-height social area, with a separated TV room, a kitchen separated from the dining room and a covered parking space for two cars. The program also called for an en suite master bedroom with its dressing room and two smaller bedrooms for future children. They also requested a studio that they would both use as their working space. They expressed their desire for the house to have an extensive outdoor gallery to enjoy nature, and a big sized pool.
Our studio designed the residence around the double-height social area. The intention was that this great hall should not be perceived from the exterior to maintain the double-floored house’s horizontal proportion, which harmonizes the relation with the surrounding environment. The social area occupies the site’s maximum building width longitudinally, endowed with openings towards the garden, swimming pool and lagoon.
As a single and pure volume, the first floor inclines towards the front acting as a roof for the main entrance and the parking space. Towards the rear, it creates the roof for a profound gallery that integrates the interior with the exterior.
Set transversely, a series of parallel inverted beams develop the concrete cover. To reduce the house’s visual perception, the beams support the slabs which, depending the case, we decided to support them in their upper level or lower level to hide the house’s real height behind the facades. On the other hand, these beams create skylights which capture the south’s indirect sunlight.
In the main hall, the double-height covering was set to the beams’ lower level so as to have the minimum height at the stairs in the first floor. The intention was to accentuate the space’s horizontal lecture.
The delicate zenithal lights penetrating the longitudinal sides of the stony looking roof, invites you to appreciate it as a lighter object, contrasting its heaviness essence.
The house’s main element is a concrete piece that separates the social area with the TV room by a hanging partition that completes the stairs and the fire place. The material’s rusticity distinguishes the piece opposing to the white plain walls in the interior.
On the first floor, blind walls at the sides of the house provide privacy to from the neighboring houses while it opens towards the street and the garden. These walls are supported by the beam´s lower level, hiding the house’s real height reinforcing the house’s horizontal proportions.
Luciano Kruk
Luciano Kruk was born on July 20, 1974, in Buenos Aires and in 2000 got a degree in Architecture at the University of Buenos Aires, where he taught Project until 2009. Nowadays, he continues to develop his academic activity as Visiting Professor. As such, he has been invited by the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid (ETSAM-UPM); Iuav University of Venice; UNIVALI of Santa Catarina, in Brazil; USJT of São Paulo, in Brazil; and the Argentinian universities of San Martín (USAM), of Congreso (UC), in Mendoza, and of San Juan (UNSJ), where he conducted a post-graduate seminar. He has also given seminars and lectures at different conference series in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Spain and Italy.
Between 2000 and 2012, Luciano was a partner at BAKarquitectos architecture office (Besonías-Almeida-Kruk), where his work gained much recognition: among other awards, he received First Prize for Individual Housing Project at the 2007 and 2009 Biennials held by CAPBA; the Special Prize Eduardo Sacrite presented by CAPBA in 2005; First Prize from Alucobond for Young Architecture in 2005; and the Great Prize at the CPAU/SCA Biennial in 2006.
In 2012 he founded Luciano Kruk arquitectos architectural office, where he has been carrying out numerous individual and collective housing projects.
In 2015, Luciano was chosen as a representative for Argentina in the 9th International Festival of Architecture and Urbanism “Architecture Week Prague”, which took place in Prague, Check Republic.
His works have been published in numerous specialized media both in Argentina and abroad, in different countries in the Americas, Europe and Asia.
