The PH Loreto project corresponds to the comprehensive renovation of a single-family residence, the fourth of five functional units that form a typical PH ensemble in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Colegiales.

It is a mid-20th-century construction that, like many others, had undergone successive partial interventions aimed at gaining enclosed floor area, to the detriment of spatial quality, natural daylight, and cross-ventilation. The intervention stems from a specific request by the owner: to reorganize the residence to respond to contemporary living dynamics, integrating differentiated areas for living and working, and restoring the possibility of enjoying domestic time, light, and air.

Within a consolidated and dense urban fabric, the project treats these conditions not as limitations but as a field for precise architectural operations. From its structural conception, the proposal adopts a clear strategy: to layer the new onto the existing with the greatest economy of means.

The addition is resolved through a lightweight volume built in steel frame construction, precisely placed over the original load-bearing masonry structure. This decision responds not only to technical and construction criteria but also establishes a deliberate dialogue between two architectural timeframes.

The new rests without imposing, generating a duality in which contemporary lightness enhances the solidity of the preexisting. The immediate context presents two contrasting situations: on one hand, a large adjoining building that acts as an opaque backdrop over the accesses and circulation of the ensemble; on the other, a vine covering the neighboring party wall, capable of filtering light and introducing an unexpected botanical dimension into the lot. Between these contingencies and opportunities, the design strategy is articulated around a central idea: treating void as architectural matter.

Windows are conceived as elements of visual continuity, the patio as the spatial and climatic articulator of daily activities, and the terrace as a node for expansion and leisure. This sequence of voids not only organizes the program but also establishes a silent resistance against urban hyper-density and the logic of stacking small units around closed circulation cores. The renovation of the PH thus operates as a statement on the quality of metropolitan habitat — a micro-surgery that recovers air, light, and domestic scale where they had been annulled. Inside, the material intervention follows a logic of refinement and enhancement of the existing.

Original masonry walls are stripped to reveal the rough texture of the old brick, later unified with a continuous white finish that amplifies natural light and reinforces the abstract reading of space. This material palette dialogues with the reused pinotea flooring, whose presence brings warmth and memory, establishing a precise counterpoint between the rough and the tactile, between the structural and the domestic.

One of the project’s fundamental gestures is the relocation of the staircase. The original stair was demolished, but its traces remain visible on the walls — not as a nostalgic gesture, but as an acknowledgment of the constructive lineage of the place. The former kitchen gives way to a new stair linking the ground floor with the mezzanine, conceived as a simple succession of steps bathed in natural light.

Along its path, small voids, skylights, and strategically placed windows allow light to penetrate deeply, reaching bathrooms and intermediate spaces, and marking the passage of the day through the shifting incidence of the sun. Built in metal and finished in dusty pink, the staircase connecting the mezzanine and the upper floor becomes the defining element of the PH. More than a functional object, it acts as a spatial, visual, and symbolic hinge: a vital node that structures circulation, introduces identity, and establishes a deliberately pop counterpoint between old and new. Its presence transcends the aesthetic to operate as a relational device capable of condensing the domestic energy of the project.

On the ground floor are located the entrance to the residence, the patio, and a hall that articulates vertical circulation.

The mezzanine houses a service restroom and reinforces the role of the staircase as the project’s central object: a piece of clear geometry and precise color whose austere objecthood concentrates the conceptual core of the intervention. The kitchen, dining room, and main living spaces are relocated to the upper floor, where the best conditions of sunlight and ventilation are concentrated.

Generous windows opening onto the patio and a long skylight running alongside the primary bedroom provide uniform and controlled lighting, building a shifting atmosphere throughout the day. The interior–exterior relationship becomes fluid, mediated by floor-to-ceiling glazing and light surfaces that amplify spatial perception and reinforce visual continuity toward the terrace.

The selection of materials — natural wood in furnishings and millwork, neutral surfaces, lightweight metalwork, and dry enclosures — contributes to a serene phenomenological experience in which the architecture withdraws to foreground light, air, and everyday use.

Far from an accumulation of gestures, the project builds its identity through material coherence and constructive precision. Rather than idealizing the past, the project treats it as a foundation upon which to improve decisions, enhance spatial relationships, and adjust functional layouts. At PH Loreto, void is not absence but opportunity: an architectural resource that enables reinhabiting the metropolis through lightness, daylight, and the everyday experience of space.