Ábode arq Stacks a Charred-Timber Family House in San Isidro Beneath Two Tiered Roof Gardens

Suburban lots in greater Buenos Aires usually force a trade: build the house you need, or keep the garden you want. On a narrow, shared plot in San Isidro, a few blocks from the Río de la Plata, Ábode arq refuses that trade by moving the garden upward. House in San Isidro, completed in 2025, packs 235 m² onto roughly 1,700 square feet of usable land. It does this across three stories and a basement, then tops the whole stack with two tiered green roofs.

The real interest here is that the house is personal. Lead architect Ángel Fernando Jorge designed it for himself and his wife, Rocío Noya, with design team members Angeles Gutierrez and Carmen Jorge and landscape architect Celeste Cabanillas. The result is a dark, compact timber volume that reads as quietly defensive from the street. Look from above, though, and you find a landscape: a slender front pool, a dense rear patio and roof terraces of gravel and grasses. We think it is a useful case study in how a small footprint can still deliver a large amount of outdoor life.

A Dark Volume in the Canopy

The charred-timber cladding does most of the work on the exterior. Against the neighborhood's tree canopy, the blackened skin recedes rather than competes, so the house reads less as an object and more as a shadow among the leaves. At dusk the effect flips: lit rooms punch through the dark envelope, and the glazing becomes the facade.

The slatted fence at the street edge carries that logic down to ground level. It screens without sealing, which matters on a shared lot where privacy has to be negotiated inch by inch.

The Garden Goes on Top

The roof is where the project makes its argument. Instead of a token sedum mat, the upper levels hold walkable terraces with gravel floors and tall grasses, generous enough for people to sit, linger and watch the evening light. The two tiers step with the massing, so the planting reads as a terrain rather than a lid.

This is the clearest response to the lot's limits. Land lost to the building footprint is recovered on the roof, and the garden gains something a ground-level yard in this suburb rarely has: open sky and distance above the fences.

An Open Ground Floor Between Two Gardens

The social floor runs as one continuous space, from sofa to dining table to a kitchen island topped with veined marble. Glass walls at both ends tie the interior to the front garden and the rear courtyard. On a narrow plot that through-view is essential, because it stretches perceived depth well beyond the actual dimensions.

The material palette stays disciplined. Polished concrete underfoot, a long dark timber table and a black steel stair line up with the project's three core materials: wood, steel and concrete. The stair rises along one edge instead of sitting in the middle of the room, so it never interrupts the sightline to the greenery.

The Hearth as Anchor

If the glass walls dissolve the edges of the living room, the fireplace pins it in place. A plaster wall with a raised stone hearth gives the space a weighted center, and the slatted timber ceiling above adds warmth and rhythm. Afternoon sun throws diagonal stripes across the plaster, a reminder that this room responds to the hour of day.

The combination is familiar in Argentine domestic architecture, but the execution is restrained: one strong element and few competing gestures.

Filtered Light and Quiet Corners

Sheer curtains soften the glazing so that the living spaces glow rather than glare. Elsewhere, a full-wall white bookshelf and a grey linen sofa form a reading corner beside a bright light well. The pale plank ceiling here contrasts with the darker slats of the main living area.

The light well deserves attention. In a tight, vertically stacked house, pulling daylight down through the plan matters as much as the views out. This corner shows the house thinking about interior as well as exterior.

Plans and Drawings

The plans confirm a clear vertical sorting. The lower level arranges the pool, front garden, entrance, living, dining and kitchen around a central hall. The first level gathers three bedrooms, a studio, laundry and bathroom around the stair and corridor. The second level gives the main bedroom suite its own garden terrace. The roof plan reveals an irregular, polygonal terrace set inside a square planted perimeter, a looser geometry than anything below it.

The sections show the basement slab stepping down with the sloping site, and they show the stair stitching all four levels together. The elevation shows how the vertical cladding, framed openings and timber slats build up to the planted crown. Read together, the drawings show that the green roofs are part of the section, not an add-on.

Why This Project Matters

Densifying suburbs across Latin America face the same squeeze: smaller lots, shared boundaries and fading back gardens. House in San Isidro offers a practical answer. Stack the program, keep the material palette tight and treat every horizontal surface, from front yard to rear patio to two roof tiers, as potential landscape. The house does not claim its compact footprint is generous; it compensates for it.

It also shows the value of architects building for themselves. With the architect as client, the project can take risks that a speculative house rarely would, such as a fully walkable roof garden, a dark facade and a stair that defers to the view. You may not adopt the whole approach, but the principle carries: on a tight lot, the section is your best tool for finding more garden.

House in San Isidro by Ábode arq (lead architect Ángel Fernando Jorge; design team Angeles Gutierrez and Carmen Jorge; landscape architecture by Celeste Cabanillas), San Isidro, Argentina. Area: 235 m². Completed: 2025. Photography by Félix Niikado.

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