Pampas House: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Pampas House is developed from within the deep contradictions of the commission to develop a sustainable Polo Resort community close to Buenos Aires, and engages the extremes of this lifestyle. A 6m tall volume consisting of as a vast glass vitrine is wrapped with a ‘C’ shaped bar containing private functions for three groups of guests and linked by a long glazed ambulatory space whose mullions mirror the patterns of the pampas grasses when experienced in parallax. The exterior glazing systems of the vitrine offer an opportunity for further experimentation with a range of glazing and shading technologies for domestic projects currently being developed within our practice. Within the vitrine and erupting out into the courtyard formed by the private wings, a series of organic volumes house and animate the spaces of collective pleasure and spectacle. Clad alternately in double curved ply and leather panels, the interior vessels connect the wine cellar, media room and study with a sky aperture above. Within the vitrine, these volumes enclose and deliver mechanical services in order to suppress any sign of technical systems, while operating as a highly efficient plenum space to support passive displacement air systems. Outside, these volumes are constructed from site cast and precast panels with concealed moment connections forming the pool and the polo viewing sala, from which a variety of voyeuristic and entertainment activities are staged. Excess forms a background for formal tectonic and technological innovation.