Located in Estancia El Terrón in Mendiolaza, Córdoba, Casa BP approaches domestic architecture as a precise response to terrain and climate rather than a formal statement. Designed by Santiago Bertotti, the residence occupies an elevated portion of the site, using the gentle topography to secure expansive views across the surrounding rural landscape while maintaining a controlled relationship with access and privacy.
ARCHITECTURE
The house follows a strictly longitudinal layout aligned with the site’s dominant boundaries. This linear organization allows the architecture to embed itself into the land through a green platform that mirrors the natural contours of the terrain. Rather than asserting itself as an object, the building operates as an extension of the site, reading slope, horizon, and orientation as part of its structure.
Two architectural strategies define the project. The primary volume presents itself as a monolithic body rendered in earth-toned pigmented cement. Toward the vehicular approach, this facade remains largely opaque, inward-looking, and protective. Facing the landscape, the same volume opens fully, replacing mass with permeability through galleries and glazing. This deliberate opposition between closure and openness establishes the spatial rhythm of the house.
A secondary pavilion subtly detaches from the main body, introducing a lighter architectural language. Black-framed glass, expansive openings, and horizontal sun-shading elements modulate light and transparency throughout the day. In contrast to the weight of the primary volume, this pavilion offers flexibility and environmental responsiveness, reinforcing the project’s dialogue between solidity and lightness.
Internally, the social areas form a continuous and flexible core that brings together living room, dining area, and kitchen. This central space connects directly to a parallel longitudinal gallery, allowing daily life to extend outward and remain visually tied to the landscape. Movement through the house follows this linear logic, emphasizing sequence and continuity over compartmentalization.
The private sector occupies one wing of the residence, buffered by a linear corridor and the thermal mass of the external walls. Openings are carefully calibrated to balance privacy, daylight, and interior comfort, ensuring stable climatic conditions without sacrificing visual connection where appropriate.
Landscape design reinforces the architectural intent. Native grasses, herbaceous plants, and local shrubs create a garden that feels inseparable from the surrounding serrano ecosystem. A linear pool runs alongside the gallery, extending the house’s geometry into the landscape while acting as a reflective plane that amplifies light and depth.
Through restraint, calibrated openness, and material clarity, Casa BP reads the landscape as its primary reference. It is an architecture that anchors itself to the land through precision rather than gesture, allowing terrain, climate, and time to shape both form and experience.
See more of Casa BP on ArchiSCENE.net.
