Designing a House Within Asunción’s Green Lung
Locating a house within a vast three-hectare urban site presented a unique challenge. Positioned beside the Botanical Garden of Asunción, one of the most important green lungs of the metropolitan area, the project required a careful response to the existing flora, fauna, and landscape. The resulting family house was conceived as an extension of its natural surroundings, allowing architecture and nature to coexist in a balanced and respectful way.
Creating Intimate and Social Spaces for a Large Family
Designed for a large family lifestyle, the residence combines intimate and social spaces that can function simultaneously while accommodating gatherings, music, and daily family activities. The design process began with a detailed topographic and tree survey, providing a precise understanding of the site before any intervention. This approach ensured that the architecture responded directly to the landscape, preserving valuable vegetation while creating flexible spaces that support both privacy and community interaction.
The design premise was based on respecting 100% of the trees on the land, whose native and aged character served as home to a very striking variety of birds and even other types of wild mammals in the urban tissue that remained active until the completion of the work. These elements would help us adopt predominant elements of transparency and visual fluidity inside/outside throughout the home.
We intervened on the site by implementing a square-shaped volume with a side of 25 meters and a central perforation that incorporates one of the existing trees into the heart of the house, which would become the protagonist of it, 1,300 m2 covered and another 700 m2 in terraces and swimming pools, totaling a project of 2000 m2.
Taking advantage of the unevenness, we organized the services in a semi-basement facing the rear garden. The ground floor would function as a large social space of interesting versatility since its limits expand and dilute through the central patio. On the upper floor, 6 en-suite bedrooms whose intimate circulation runs around the treetop. Finally, a panoramic roof terrace with recreational activities such as a gym, a spa, and a swimming pool crowns the residence.
With solid and austere materiality, exposed concrete predominates for load-bearing structures and certain exterior enclosure screens, as well as exposed dry-joint brick masonry, which generates a slight appearance of sophistication to an ancient technique. Mechanical ironwork details for dynamic elements that give a particular character to blinds, doors, and other moving gears.
At a sensory level, the transparency towards the outside of exuberant vegetation predominates, maintaining that way the shadow and penumbra indoors, understanding that the Paraguayan subtropical climate is quite hot for much of the year. This would be achieved through proper orientation of the facades and a staggered section of the upper elements over the lower ones, projecting shadow throughout the day.
