Globa Apartment

After living in a house in the suburbs of Buenos Aires. The couple of architects, Ariel Glot and Romina Barja, wanted to return to the City with their two daughters, but they refused to give up the space and nature that a house offered them. So, after a 4-year search, they found an irresistible proposal. An apartment to reform from the 70s, with a huge backyard, which had been owned and designed by a renowned architect and was only a few blocks from where Ariel lived all his childhood.

Ariel is a founding partner of GEKA, a real estate development firm that designs and construct buildings in the city of Buenos Aires, while Romina is in charge of her own Architecture firm Barja Studio that designs Houses, renovation and Interior projects.

The apartment, although it needed a big renovation, had enormous potential, product of the original design that has to be avant-garde for its time. This, added to the urban oasis that the backyard represents in the middle of the city.

Ariel and Romina, worked together in the renovation of this apartment, something to which they were comfortable with, since they were going for their third renovated house to live. The difference was that this time it had to be carried out in stages given the complexity and extent of the reform, which was a real logistical challenge.

The first part of the renovation included the backyard and the restoration of the barbecue area and multipurpose space at the end of it. The backyard is located in what was the original Rio de la Plata’s ravine hundreds of years ago and had in its original design, an inspiration in the tropical gardens of Burle Marx, so we made the decision to continue with that aesthetic look , rearranging some plants and placing many new ones as well. For the Parrilla, the typical Argentinian barbecue space, we renovated the existing one, restoring the whole space, so it can be set up to organize large meals with family and friends, since we both really like to cook and host people. The multipurpose space in the back works as an indoor barbecue space, office or atelier, it used to be ragged shed that now is lagged in black sheet metal in order to give it a contemporary look and reduce its exterior maintenance. “The apartment is a house inside building, having such a backyard, at no time do you feel that you are in the city”.

The following year, it was the moment to renovate the first floor, which has the most private sector of the house, the suite and child rooms and bathrooms. The challenge in this case, consisted of rearrange the floorplan so that all the rooms can face directly to the lush backyard while maintaining, restoring and reapplying all of the existing Japanese ash wood paneling that divides the previous floorplan. Work was carried out exhaustively together with a Carpenter/craftsman, an Oak wood floor was chosen whose tone resembled that of the dividing paneling. The whole combination give a feeling of warmth that, once again, contrasts with the bustling city.

Finally, after the Covid Pandemic, it was time to restore the ground floor that contains the living room and the kitchen area. The open distribution of the floor plan remained the same, we even decided to go further, integrating the kitchen by placing a central island, leaving the object/toilet volume as the only space structuring thing for the ground floor. It is lagged in oak wood panels both to reinforce this idea, as well as to give it an aesthetic continuity with the first floor. In the toilette, the aesthetics of the 70's were fully maintained, restoring marbles and coverings. Both the toilet with their curves and the spiral staircase are Faithfull representative sculptures of the original period of the apartment. In the rest of the ground floor, all the Windows were replaced by aluminum ones with DVH, giving the largest possible opening to the garden. The hardwood floor is the original one, which also was restored.

For most of the furniture, chairs, tables, bookcases, lighting fixtures, we carefully choose Argentine designs and production from small and medium-sized design studios, since here we have lots of very good quality production and craftsmanship. The rest of the decoration is complemented by objects brought from different trips made over the years and reflect the other family passion… to travel.