Tomas Mielnikowicz Lays an L-Shaped Concrete Pavilion with Sliding Metal Shutters on Farmland near Mercedes

Out past the town of Mercedes, in the Province of Buenos Aires, the land flattens into a grid of fields, dirt roads and windbreaks of tall trees. MRNO House, completed in 2016 by Tomas Mielnikowicz, sits on a plot that came out of one owner's initiative to subdivide a larger property. It is a single-storey, 228 m² house: a flat concrete roof carried on slim round columns, with glass walls set beneath it and corrugated metal panels that slide across the openings.

What interests us is how little the house relies on form to make its case. The plan is a plain L, and the section is one roof slab over one floor slab. The architecture comes from the relationship between three layers: the concrete frame, the glazing, and the movable metal skin. Read together, they turn a modest country house into a building whose degree of openness the owners can set by hand, day by day.

An L on Open Ground

The aerial view explains the strategy. A small white L sits on a pale rectangle cut out of agricultural land, with a dirt road along one edge. On terrain this flat and exposed, an L does what a courtyard wall would do elsewhere: the two wings fold around a lawn and give the house a protected side and an exposed side without any fencing.

From ground level, the stands of eucalyptus and poplar behind the house do as much spatial work as the building. The roofline stays low and horizontal, well below the tree canopy, so the house reads as a ledge laid along the landscape rather than an object placed on top of it.

The Roof Slab as the Whole Idea

Look up from the porch and the main gesture is easy to see. A concrete roof cantilevers past its supports and ends in a crisp, thin edge, while a cylindrical column stands well back from that edge. Keeping the slab edge sharp and the columns round sets up a quiet contrast between the hard horizontal line and the soft vertical supports.

Across the gravel drive, the slab works as the house's horizon line. Below it, everything is infill that can change: glass, metal and curtains. That hierarchy is what lets the elevation stay calm even though its surfaces keep shifting.

Corrugated Metal as a Second Skin

The corrugated sliding panels are the most rural material choice in the house and the most effective. Corrugated sheet belongs to sheds, barns and water tanks, so on a country plot it feels at home rather than borrowed. Here it is framed and put on tracks between the floor and roof slabs, so the shutters can close over the floor-to-ceiling glass or slide back beside it.

On the side facade, a stone wall adds a third, heavier material next to the metal and glass. Each surface does its own job: the stone stays fixed, the metal moves, and the glass stays transparent. Nothing pretends to be anything else.

Thresholds and the Entry Sequence

The entry is underplayed: a black door at the end of a concrete path, next to a run of shutters, with a yucca and some gravel for company. It does not perform. You find the door through the rhythm of the facade rather than through a canopy or a projecting volume, which suits a house whose public face is mostly operable wall.

Close up, a tall dark-framed window catches the poplars, and the ribs of the metal panels pick up long shadows in the afternoon sun. Low light gives the corrugation a texture that a flat cladding would never have, so the cheapest material on the facade ends up being the most expressive.

The Porch Is the House's Real Room

Along the courtyard side, the roof extends over a covered concrete porch lined with slender round columns. Wicker chairs, a few river stones in the grass and translucent corrugated panels make it clear that this is a lived-in space, not a token gallery. In the climate of the Pampas, a deep shaded edge like this probably gets as much use as the living room behind it.

At night the porch reverses roles. Ceiling lamps light the metal panels set between the columns, and the colonnade becomes a lit wall at the edge of the lawn. With very little means, the house shows two convincing faces depending on the hour.

A Lantern at Dusk

The twilight images explain the shutters better than any daytime shot. Where the panels are pulled back, the rooms glow through the glass; where they are closed, the facade goes dark and solid. Alternating metal and glass bays along the bedroom wing show each room's status at a glance, so the facade becomes a readout of how the house is being lived in.

Seen in full length next to a tall eucalyptus, the pavilion is unmistakably a modernist glass house. The difference is that the corrugated panels give it a way to close up. That option makes the transparency something the owners choose rather than a condition imposed on them, which is where many glass houses in open country fall short.

Living Behind Glass

Inside, the living room is mostly a frame for the view. A sofa with fur cushions faces sliding glass walls, then the covered terrace, the lawn and the line of trees beyond. Pale curtains give a softer level of control inside the glass, matching the metal shutters outside.

The interior is kept deliberately simple. The drawings show a polished microcement floor over radiant heating, which explains why the room can stay bare: the floor itself provides warmth, and the open landscape does the decorating.

Plans and Drawings

The axonometric shows a long flat slab with a recessed gap at its center, and the plan confirms an angled L. Bedrooms run in a row along one wing, and living and dining take the other. Because every room lines up along a single depth, each one gets the same relationship to the porch and the lawn.

The sections and details are where the project proves its seriousness. They show a roof build-up with insulation and waterproofing, slim posts between floor and roof, and a perimeter edge beam over compacted soil. The floor build-up runs from microcement down through screed, radiant layers, insulation and lean concrete. One sheet is given entirely to the sliding corrugated panel, with its frame, rails and fixings dimensioned between the slabs. That the shutter received its own drawing tells you it is central to the design, not an add-on. Structural calculation was by Sebastian Berdichevsky.

Why This Project Matters

Most country houses in the Argentine countryside choose between two models: the closed, introverted casco or the fully exposed glass pavilion. MRNO House rejects that choice. It builds a permanent concrete frame, fills it with glass, and then gives the owners a farm-shed material to adjust the result. The architectural idea is the act of sliding a panel, not the outline of a volume.

We also value the restraint. At 228 m², with one roof, one floor and an L-shaped plan, the house spends its effort where you actually notice it: the slab edge, the column profile, the shutter track and the build-up under your feet. Young practices often try to say everything in a first house. This one makes a single clear statement and details it carefully, from the site plan down to the screed.

MRNO House by Tomas Mielnikowicz, near Mercedes, Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Area: 228 m². Completed: 2016.

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