A three-story residence in San Isidro, just north of Buenos Aires, demonstrates how limited urban plots can still incorporate abundant greenery. Rather than accepting the usual trade-offs that come with tight spaces, Abode Arq designed a home where plant-filled terraces ascend alongside the structure, reclaiming vertical space that would otherwise remain purely architectural.
Vertical Gardening on a Constrained Site
The property shares its boundaries with adjacent buildings, leaving little room for traditional ground-level gardens. To overcome this, the architects distributed outdoor areas vertically, raising landscaping rather than restricting it to the available ground. From an aerial perspective, the layout reveals a tiered approach: a slender pool garden at street level, a mid-height planted terrace, and a expansive rooftop garden forming the highest point.
Functional Rooftop Living Space
The topmost terrace serves as a habitable outdoor area, featuring gravel surfaces framed by vegetation and integrated wooden seating. Native grasses and other plants soften the terrace’s perimeter, while its raised position frames views of the surrounding neighborhood and tree canopy. Below, a smaller garden terrace aligns with upper-floor rooms, ensuring greenery remains accessible at every level. These layered spaces transform what would normally be unused roof and terrace areas into active parts of the home while bringing plants to heights where conventional gardens couldn’t reach.
At the lowest level, landscaping wraps around the narrow pool, with trees and shrubs framing the garden views for adjacent rooms.
One key consideration in narrow urban lots is balancing access, natural light, and privacy with neighboring properties. The architects maintained an existing pedestrian passage alongside the property, preserving the original route while integrating it with the new construction.
This passage runs parallel to the house’s exterior, clad in charred kiri wood. Climbing plants and an overhead structural framework create an additional buffer between the building and its neighbor.
Open-Plan Interior Connecting Multiple Levels
The interior employs a steel skeleton and precast concrete floors to create a series of fluid, interconnected spaces. This structural system supports large windows and sliding glass doors without subdividing the living areas into smaller, enclosed rooms.
The combined living and dining zones occupy adjacent areas, with the dining space positioned next to expansive glass walls that open directly onto the raised garden. The kitchen extends outward as well, blending indoor and outdoor environments through its central island counter and adjacent glass openings that maintain visual and physical connections to the surrounding vegetation.
On an upper floor, a versatile multipurpose area overlooks the main living space, establishing a vertical link between levels. A minimal metal railing separates this upper zone from the open area below, allowing it to function independently while preserving the overall sense of openness.
Wooden ceiling panels throughout the interior introduce warmth to the otherwise minimalist combination of exposed steel, concrete, and light-colored walls.
The building’s exterior features the same charred kiri wood used indoors, creating a cohesive material language despite differences in finish. This continuity ties the interior and exterior environments together visually.
The terraced gardens contribute to a broader sustainability strategy that includes native plant species, rainwater collection systems, passive cooling through ventilation, and abundant natural light. By integrating gardens across the rooftop, intermediate levels, and ground floor, Abode Arq has redefined outdoor space in a densely built urban area. The design proves that even on constrained lots, a home’s connection to nature need not be confined to the ground alone.
