The project site is a six-acre vineyard within The Vines of Mendoza, in Los Chacayes, Tunuyán, located 85 kilometers southwest of the city of Mendoza, Argentina. It is set at the foothills of the Andes mountain range, in the renowned Uco Valley, one of the country’s most prestigious wine regions.
Within a landscape of open horizons and profound Andean silence, Scott, the client—passionate about wine and its culture—decided to acquire his own vineyard, produce his wines, and build a house where he could share days of rest, nature, and contemplation with his loved ones.
The program consisted of a non-urban dwelling conceived as a refuge, in direct relation with the vineyards and the mountain range. It includes a shared space for living, dining, and cooking; four bedrooms; a workspace; a wine cellar; and outdoor leisure areas.
The guiding idea was based on an understanding of the territory as a horizontal and silent geometry, where architecture aligns with the existing natural order—the cosmos. Conceived as an inhabited line, arranged parallel to the mountain range, it organizes the functions and directs each space toward the Andean horizon. Its transverse layout reflects a desire for belonging: that every area of dwelling participates in the same act of contemplation.
The design strategy therefore arises from three principles:
1. Horizontality as a form of integration, understood both as a compositional gesture and as an attitude toward the landscape. Through a linear circulation on the eastern side, the functions are articulated and arranged toward the Andean west.
2. The platform as boundary and mediation, a plane that lifts the gaze above the vineyards, allowing it to connect with the mountains while providing the proper distance from the ground.
3. Materiality as continuity with the environment, where local stone and pigmented concrete express a shared mineral nature. Mass, texture, and tone merge into a material continuity with the mountain range. The concrete, with its serene and mineral presence, provides weight and timelessness. The stone, in its irregularity and density, anchors the building to the site.
Together, these principles shape an architecture that seeks to endure without imposing itself, to integrate without dissolving. A quiet, tectonic presence that emerges from the land as an extension of its own structure. The overall composition responds to a criterion of synthesis: a geometric language, proportions guided by the ancient notion of number as a principle of beauty, and a balance between opacity and transparency.
To inhabit this house is to enter a different rhythm—one that invites stillness, where time becomes material and silence gains depth. Every space awakens awareness of the present moment. Its austere geometry, stripped of artifice, gains meaning by serving the essential. It presents itself as a link between humans and nature, where dwelling becomes an act of contemplation. More than a house, it is a pause in the landscape: a silent presence whose purpose is defined by the immensity that surrounds it.
Technical Sheet
Location: The Vines of Mendoza, Los Chacayes, Tunuyán, Mendoza, Argentina
Built Area: 750 m²
Project and Completion Year: 2022–2023
Architects: González Olsina & Vega Arquitectos
Project Team: Arq. Charly González Olsina, Arq. Eduardo Vega
Collaborators: Arq. Cecilia Blanco, Arq. Nicolás Telechea, Arq. Bianca Brescia
Photography: Luis Abba
Status: Completed
