Grimaldi-Nacht Wraps a 50-Meter Lapacho Screen Around a Concrete House on Uruguay's Coast

Gaviota House began as a vacation sketch and ended as a full-time home. Designed by Grimaldi-Nacht arquitectos for a family of four, the 850 m² residence in José Ignacio, Uruguay, was originally conceived as a seasonal retreat. Then the pandemic hit, and the clients decided to relocate permanently. That biographical twist is worth noting because the house reads like a place someone actually lives in: generous but not theatrical, materially tough enough for daily wear, and oriented so that every room negotiates the line between privacy and openness.

The most striking gesture is a curving wall of lapacho hardwood shutters that runs for more than 50 meters along the western face of the building. It is not decoration. The screen does three things at once: it blocks the punishing western sun, it shields interior life from a public street, and it can swing open entirely to dissolve the boundary between the recreational areas and the sea. That single element, paired with a palette of exposed concrete, yellow granite, and deep courtyards, gives Gaviota House its particular character: heavy and sheltering from the street, light and panoramic from within.

The Curved Timber Veil

The lapacho shutters are not a flat plane. They follow a curving line that wraps the house's western and southwestern edges, creating a sinuous timber boundary visible from the street. The system uses Gradhermetic GRADPANEL pivoting sliding shutters, which means the entire screen can be reconfigured panel by panel, from fully closed to fully open. In the closed position, the lattice casts a dense filigree of shadow across the decks and interior floors. In the open position, the house becomes a concrete pavilion with nothing between the living spaces and the Atlantic.

The choice of lapacho, a South American hardwood prized for its density and weather resistance, is deliberate. It will silver over time in the coastal salt air, but it won't rot. The timber's warm tone against the raw board-marked concrete establishes the material dialogue that runs through the entire project: one warm, one cool; one operable, one permanent.

Stone, Concrete, and Ground

The house is anchored to its site by a base of yellow granite that forms both the retaining walls of the courtyards and the ground-level enclosure. This stone is not just cladding; it structures the relationship between interior and exterior. Inner courtyards are carved out of the building's footprint and lined with granite walls, planted with trees, and punctuated by large boulders that look as though they were simply left in place when the foundations were dug. Whether they were or not, the effect is convincing. The courtyards feel geological rather than designed.

Above the stone base, the upper volume is poured concrete, cantilevered outward to create deep overhangs and sheltered terraces. The cantilever is not subtle: the concrete mass projects well beyond the stone below, making the upper floor appear to hover. Board-marked formwork gives the concrete surfaces a grain that echoes the timber screens, an echo that is more textural than literal but registers clearly as you move through the house.

Courtyards as Climate Infrastructure

José Ignacio is not the tropics, but it gets intense western sun in summer. Grimaldi-Nacht's response is architectural, not mechanical. The planted courtyards work as thermal buffers, pulling cooled air into the interior through floor-to-ceiling glazing. The lapacho screens on the west handle direct solar gain. And the deep concrete soffits shade the terraces during the hottest hours. There is no visible HVAC equipment in any of the published images, which suggests either careful cropping or a genuine commitment to passive strategies. Given the latitude and sea breezes of the Uruguayan coast, the latter is plausible.

The corridors that connect the house's rooms are narrow and tall, lined with board-marked concrete on one side and timber on the other. They function as compression spaces: after the brightness of the terraces and the openness of the courtyards, these passages slow you down and recalibrate your eyes before the next room opens up. It is a simple trick, but it works because the material contrast reinforces the spatial shift.

The View Easement and the 180-Degree Horizon

A critical fact about Gaviota House has nothing to do with architecture and everything to do with real estate law. The lot sits on a corner and benefits from a view easement agreement that prevents neighboring buildings from blocking its sightlines. The result is a 180-degree visual range from the upper floor, an almost absurd luxury in a resort town where density is increasing and ocean views are contested commodities. Grimaldi-Nacht exploit this advantage fully. The master bedroom faces the water, with a sitting area that connects down to the public zones below. The stepped roof terraces, visible in aerial photographs, are arranged so that even the outdoor spaces on top of the house enjoy unobstructed views.

The infinity pool at the terrace edge completes the composition. It sits just below the line of the horizon, so that from the covered dining area the water of the pool appears to merge with the Atlantic beyond. This is a familiar trick in resort architecture, but the concrete framing here gives it more weight than the typical glass-railed version. The pool edge is a slab, not a vanishing act.

Living Under Concrete Beams

The covered terraces on the ocean side are defined by deep exposed concrete beams that run perpendicular to the coastline. These beams do not pretend to be slender. They are heavy, closely spaced, and cast rhythmic shadow bars across the timber deck. The effect is somewhere between a pergola and a bunker, which is exactly the tension that makes the house interesting. You are sheltered and exposed at the same time. The beams frame the horizon into horizontal strips, and because the timber screens can be opened behind you, the wind moves straight through.

Standing on the deck looking outward through the concrete beams and across the pool to the sea, you understand why the family stayed. The house does not just capture a view; it calibrates your relationship to the landscape at every threshold. Construction took 14 months under the direction of Estudio Pedroni, Miguel Rossi, and construction company Clevelit S.A., with structural engineering by Armando Stescovich. The speed is notable for a project of this material ambition.

Arrival and the Street Edge

From the street, Gaviota House is almost opaque. The granite base wall rises to shoulder height, topped by the lattice screen and a concrete roof canopy that compresses the entry sequence. You approach along a curving gravel driveway flanked by native vegetation and bare winter trees, and the house reveals itself gradually: first the stone, then the timber, then, as you pass through the entry, the sudden depth of the courtyard and the ocean beyond. It is a classic compressed-to-expanded arrival, but the curve of the driveway and the curve of the screen add a rotational quality that keeps you slightly off balance until you are inside.

Plans and Drawings

The three floor plans reveal the organizational logic beneath the material spectacle. The underground level tucks a garage, machine room, small spa, guest bedroom, and services beneath a large patio, keeping the functional bulk invisible. The ground floor wraps living and dining spaces around the planted courtyard in a loose L-shape, with the western timber screen defining the outer boundary and the stone courtyards creating pockets of protected outdoor space. The first floor is more linear: bedrooms are arranged in a row along the left side of the plan, with outdoor terraces to the right. The master suite occupies the prime corner position, taking full advantage of the 180-degree easement.

What the plans make clear, and what the photographs only hint at, is how much of the house is actually outdoor space. The terraces, courtyards, and roof decks together rival the enclosed area. In a permanent-residence scenario, especially one provoked by a desire to leave the city, that ratio makes sense. The house is less a sealed container and more a landscape with a roof over parts of it.

Why This Project Matters

Gaviota House is interesting because it refuses to choose between robustness and openness. The concrete and granite give it the mass and permanence of infrastructure, while the operable lapacho screens and open courtyards make it as porous as a garden pavilion. That duality is not resolved; it is maintained as a productive tension throughout the house. In a coastal context where buildings are either fortified boxes or breezy open plans, Grimaldi-Nacht demonstrate that you can be both at once, and that the threshold between them can itself become the defining architectural experience.

The pandemic backstory is more than an anecdote. It changed the program from seasonal leisure to year-round habitation, and the house holds up under that increased demand because its strategies are environmental, not decorative. The screens work in summer and winter. The courtyards moderate temperature and light across seasons. The material palette will age without requiring constant maintenance. What could have been a glossy holiday villa became, almost by accident, a serious house for living in. That is a better outcome than most architects get to claim.

Gaviota House by Grimaldi-Nacht arquitectos, José Ignacio, Uruguay. 850 m². Completed 2021. Photography by Javier Agustín Rojas.

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