Nativa House

Montevideo, Uruguay
2024

An uninhabited house in a residential neighborhood of Montevideo, Uruguay, meets a family returning to the country after many years living abroad.

The project for the new Nativa House is the result of a dialogue that begins after this encounter, in which spaces, rituals, and technologies from different eras intertwine, tense, and coexist to create something new.

Although the two floors of the original construction, from 1956, were markedly different ―the upper one dedicated to family and social life, and the lower one intended for services and garages― the transformation project proposed to conceive them as spaces of similar daily importance. For this, all interior partitions, the staircase, and parts of the existing facade were removed to expose its simple structure and give prominence to the void.

Likewise, access to the house, which used to be through a bridge connecting the street to the upper floor, now takes place by descending a ramp through a wild garden. Thus, the lower floor opens up and links the front with the backyard.

This change in the way of moving through its spaces is reinforced by the incorporation of two devices: a unique indoor-outdoor staircase that connects the two floors with each other and with the new semicircular-section greenhouse-workshop that appears on the roof.

Thus, the set of interventions frames a lively and affectionate second life for this house and allows us to imagine ways of life that value and enjoy reusing what already exists.

Authors: Luciano Andrades, Matías Carballal, Andrés Gobba, Mauricio López, Silvio Machado

Project Team: Lucía Martinotti, Pablo Courreges, Martina Pedreira, Fabián Sarubbi, Emilia Dehl, Florencia Mastropierro, Romina Mangini, Alejandro Cuadro, Santiago Alvante, Laura Castell, Pilar Fernandez Terra, Hernán Gómez, Emiliano Lago, Sebastián Lambert, Aldo Lanzi, Diego Morera, Victoria Muniz, Agustina Vigevani, Emma Prevett

Photography: Aldo Lanzi

Structural Project: Ing. Iván Gorrostazo
Lighting Project: Estudio Hofstadter Fregosi y Asociados
Plumbing Project: Ing. Alejandro Curcio
Construction: Insaco
Lighting Fixtures: Lyte
Millwork: Cosia y Pombo
Windows: Alushop
Countertops: Laviere Vitacca

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