Álvarez-Nuovo Atelier in Paraguay by Nicolás Berger & Giacomo Favilli.

It’s half house, half artist’s studio/workshop. Álvarez-Nuovo Atelier was designed by b|f|a architects in Paraguay. “By virtue of having organised the site from two elements: a transverse volume with housing program and a longitudinal bar with services program,” noted the architects.

The residence is connected to the garden via large glass sliding doors – the view of the garden and the pool unfettered except when the curtains are drawn or the blinds let down to keep out the heat. Whereas the atelier is almost completely the opposite.

Timber plywood sheeting applied to the walls and ceiling of the studio effectively deprive the artist of any vista of the beautiful, lush garden beyond. Clever horizontal, floor-level perspex windows pivot open allowing if not massive amounts of light, and certainly no view, then at least air flow to circulate.

But it’s not at all dark in this painting studio. The angular roof section carved overhead lets in tones of natural light. “The angled light and its overhead counterpoint serve as material to the artists,” said the architects.

The space, with its earthy red/orange timber walls feels both cocooned from the outside world but also illuminated at the same time, by the bright sunlight streaming in from the geometric cut-out in the roof. It’s a beautiful space to create in. The timber warms the interior as well as acts in a practical sense, a place to hang or lean artworks, works in progress, sketches.

Even the back wall of the atelier, made from corrugated, milky perspex sheeting is designed to reduce vision to the outside. There’s a lovely layering of materials applied to the atelier. Different skins lay atop and beside each other moulding the space. It’s a glossy, timber skin on the inside and raw, corrugated-sheet metal skin on the outside. It’s a self-assured, controlled approach to the use and application of materials in this project.

“A large longitudinal space constructed with logical parts, standard and economic resolved with a structural system of steel tubes, covered by a double skin of sheet metal and wood. A deposit of paintings organises the access and a cleaning tables finishes off the proposal,” said the architects.

Self-restraint is evident all the way through this project, from the implementation of materials through to the calm and deliberate decision exclude any fenestration in the studio. There is something heartening though that the main residence can fling its doors wide open in abandon. The cool brick and concrete flooring of the living areas seamlessly join the interior with the exterior, a direct contrast to the almost hermetic effect created in the atelier, shut off as it is from the outside world. After all that cocooning in the studio, one suspects one might well enjoy the acres of glass walls in the main house, the beautiful views it affords of the garden and the delicious ease of opening the space up.

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