Architecture for architects at Casa L4. Exposed concrete and landscape

Vacation home in Costa Esmeralda

Architects Luciano Kruk and Ekaterina Künzel had already designed and seen several houses built in Costa Esmeralda and, fascinated by the landscape, they chose the location for their own vacation home. Located 13 km north of the city of Pinamar and 4 hours from Buenos Aires, Barrio Marítimo II is home to the Casa L4 lot, which is 200 meters from the sea and separated from it by a line of pine trees. The land is sloping, both transversely with a 2-meter difference in elevation, and longitudinally with a gentle slope that descends towards the sea

The materiality of exposed concrete

Architects choose exposed concrete as the main finish for their seaside villa for two fundamental reasons. The first is that, having already experienced it in other residences of the same type, they know that this material requires very little maintenance, remaining in good condition for a long time. The other, more stylistic, motivation is the harmonious dialogue that is created between the surrounding natural environment and the color and texture of the concrete itself: Casa L4 is a solid and sincere architecture, with a plastic form, immersed in the forest

The volumes and internal distribution

Developed mainly on a single level, the villa is designed with a square plan that houses the four bedrooms with their respective bathrooms positioned at the ends, to provide as much privacy as possible, and the area for communal activities in the center. The architects choose to leave as much space as possible for the garden and dedicate the upper part of the lot and the house to an outdoor area equipped to contemplate the poetry of the landscape facilitated by the pure forms of the house and the rooftop pool

Architecture to awaken the senses

Contrasts of blind walls and large windows, of closed and dark spaces with diffuse environments flooded with natural light, suspended walls and vertical cuts, sculptural stairs and crystal cubes: Casa L4, with its plastic expressiveness, is a box made of niches and openings in the middle of nature, where the exterior flows in and out; it is a constitutive part of its own environment. The architecture of Casa L4 is designed to awaken the senses of its inhabitants who, in turn, animate it, in the mystical reciprocity that often occurs between people and things