Gonzalo Bardach designs House JR in Buenos Aires with focus on light, materiality, and time

Architect Gonzalo Bardach created House JR, a 140 sq m residence in San Isidro, Buenos Aires, Argentina, named after the client's initials. The project centered on three pillars: light, matter, and time, aiming for a simpler relationship with nature. Bardach, founder of his namesake studio, emphasized constructing a way of inhabiting rather than a singular image, using materiality and atmosphere as primary tools. Warm pigmented concrete was employed to shape spaces through light, thickness, and time, creating thick walls and flowing planes that open to the landscape. This concrete posed a challenge, requiring careful control of color, texture, and execution to serve both structural and atmospheric roles. The ground floor houses daily life, seamlessly extending into outdoor planted and terraced areas, making the outdoors feel integrated. The design encourages slow discovery through changes in light, scale, and material, fostering a sense of calm. Bardach highlighted a moment where filtered light interacts with vegetation through concrete planes as the project's essence, capturing the passage of time and climate changes. The residence unfolds as a sequence of atmospheres with a gentle interplay of shadow and light, achieving technical consistency and intended spatial effects.