Genovesi Arquitectos Wraps a San Rafael House Around Stone-Walled Courtyards and Board-Formed Concrete

H1 House sits on an infill lot in San Rafael, Mendoza, in a part of town where gardens matter as much as buildings. The neighborhood is low in density, and trees grow in both private courtyards and public space. Genovesi Arquitectos, with Joaquín Genovesi leading the project, has designed a 450 m² family house that does not fight this condition. Instead it pulls the greenery inward. Completed in 2026 and built by Nazca Construcciones Civiles, the house is mostly made of three materials: rough fieldstone, board-formed concrete and warm timber, with slim steel columns doing much of the structural work at the glazed edges.

What interests us is less the material palette and more the order in which you meet it. The architects describe a gradual transition between the public sphere and the domestic realm, and the plan delivers on that claim. You do not walk from the sidewalk straight into a living room. First comes a stone wall, then a gate, then a lawn, then a canopy, then a glazed corridor lined with planted light wells. By the time you sit down, you have passed through five or six thresholds. That sequence is the real design work here, and it is worth studying closely.

A Stone Wall Instead of a Front Door

From the street, H1 House shows a heavy fieldstone base, a vertical steel slat gate and a concrete volume above that is partly hidden behind tree branches. The stone gives the lower level a sense of weight and enclosure, while the upper floor reads as lighter and more open, especially at dusk when the glazing glows. It is a familiar layering, but the proportions are calm and the tree in front is clearly treated as part of the composition rather than an obstacle.

Pass through the gate and the house does not reveal itself all at once. Stepping-stone slabs and concrete steps cross the lawn, and a thin cantilevered concrete canopy reaches out over the entry wall. The canopy works as a cue: it tells you where to go without needing a formal porch. The street wall protects the house, and the garden behind it gives you some time before you reach the door.

Living Rooms That Face Walls, Not Views

The main living and dining space sits under a board-marked concrete ceiling and opens through large sliding glass walls to planted courtyards. Woven pendant lamps, a round dining table and timber shelving soften the room. The concrete above you is clearly raw, but the furniture and the light keep it domestic.

The interesting decision is what the glass looks at. On an infill lot there is no long view, so Genovesi gives the rooms a near view instead: a rough stone wall a few meters away, with a planted strip at its base. The wall catches sunlight and shadow through the day, so it works like a landscape. This is a sensible response to a tight suburban site, and it makes the house feel private even with full-height glazing.

Light Wells as the Organizing Device

If you want to understand H1 House, look at the narrow voids. Slots between board-formed concrete walls, crossed by beams and lined with stone at ground level, bring sky and planting into the middle of the plan. A glazed corridor runs between two of these light wells, and the sun throws striped shadows across the polished floor. Bird-of-paradise grows on bark mulch under a concrete pergola, and a drainage grate shows that these spaces were planned to get rain, not just to look good.

These wells do three jobs at once. They provide daylight and cross views deep inside a lot with closed sides, they turn circulation into something you notice, and they spread the green the architects talk about through the whole house instead of keeping it in the backyard. It is a strategy with a long history in courtyard housing, but here it feels specific and carefully sized.

Concrete Above, Steel at the Edges

The rear facade explains the structure clearly. Two floors are stacked behind concrete beams, with thin steel columns at the glazed edges and sheer curtains filtering the interior. Seen against a pale sky, the board-formed slabs and beams have a heavy, horizontal look that contrasts with how thin the steel supports are.

That contrast keeps the house from feeling like a bunker. The concrete provides mass and texture, and the steel keeps the openings wide. Along the covered walkway, a square concrete column and a slab over the lawn create a deep shaded zone between garden and interior, which is a useful room in a hot, dry Mendoza summer, even if the architects have not published details on passive design.

A Stair Set Against Stone

The floating timber stair rises next to the rough stone wall, with a glazed gallery on the other side. Here the three main materials meet within arm's reach: stone you could touch, timber under your feet and concrete overhead. A timber handrail sits on a dark steel bracket set into board-marked concrete, a small joint handled with care.

Timber wall paneling along the corridors and dining area adds warmth to an otherwise mineral interior. When diagonal sunlight falls across the panels, the wood becomes the warmest surface in the house. Wood appears mainly where your hands and body touch the building, which is the right place for it.

The Upper Floor Looks Into the Trees

Upstairs, the mood changes. Walkways with steel cable railings run beside board-formed concrete walls, and the windows look into the tree canopy instead of at stone. Low evening sun moves across the concrete, and a white planter sits at a mezzanine window, a small touch that links back to the planted voids below.

The cable balustrades are nearly invisible, so the upper corridors feel like open bridges over the voids. On the ground floor the outlook is closed and close. Upstairs it opens into the leaves of the neighborhood, so you get both qualities within one house.

Plans and Drawings

The ground floor plan shows how many courtyards are packed into the lot. The kitchen, dining zone and living room sit around small planted patios, with a larger garden behind them. Upstairs, bedrooms and bathrooms are arranged around the same voids, and a roof terrace grid sits next to the garden. The axonometric shows the overall L-shaped volume with its flat roofs, timber pergola and stone garden wall, while the transversal section shows a bedroom stacked over the living room and a planted courtyard with a tree beside them, with a sloped roof element visible in that cut.

Why This Project Matters

Suburban infill lots are some of the most common sites architects work on, and some of the hardest to do well. They come with neighbors on both sides, a street that is too close and little or no view. H1 House shows a clear answer: give up the distant view, build your own landscape inside the lot and treat the walk from the gate as a series of rooms. Stone walls, light wells and a concrete canopy do more for privacy and atmosphere here than any screen or facade pattern could.

We would like to know more about how the house performs in Mendoza's climate and how the concrete and timber were detailed, since the published information is limited. Even so, the drawings and photographs make the main idea clear. Genovesi Arquitectos has turned the architects' stated aim, a closer relationship with the green surroundings, into a spatial sequence you actually experience. That is a lesson worth taking to the next ordinary lot you work on.

H1 House by Genovesi Arquitectos (lead architect Joaquín Genovesi), San Rafael, Mendoza, Argentina. Area: 450 m². Completed: 2026. General contractor: Nazca Construcciones Civiles. Photography by Luis Abba.

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