A 1950s Home in Argentina Is Now a Live/Work Community for Five Friends

In a residential area of the city of Resistencia, in Argentina, lengths of white corrugated plastic forming a wall at the street signal an intervention where once stood a single-family 1950s home. A stone-framed entry at one end gives way to a corridor, where terra-cotta breeze-block walls running the depth of the lot form semiprivate courtyards around a series of apartments and workspaces. The courtyards give residents a place to store bikes, hang clothes, and cultivate plants, but they also provide a chance to connect, a central feature of the new plan.

Daiana Katz, who designed the project with fellow architects Nahuel Zampayo and Agostina Vacca Arreseygor, explains how creating a close-knit community is at the heart of Las Casitas, which they all call home. “From the beginning, the project included an intervention on the sidewalk with a small bench—the kind of place where we all usually have some sort of ‘sidewalk moment,’” she says. “Where we sit to have a drink with a friend, and where we run into each other…or another neighbor pops by.”

Prior to the renovation, Daiana was already living on the property, which her parents own, living in an original space that had been updated. Fueled by a practical need to formalize this project and the dream of a life without commuting, she and Nahuel and Agostina began toying with the idea of reimagining the property as a live/work space with rental units, simultaneously forming their architecture studio, Este Norte. By adapting and dividing up the property, it would allow them to generate a revenue stream to live and work affordably in the same place.