Equipo de Arquitectura’s new indoor-outdoor house, A Forest in the House, completed in 2025 in San Bernardino, Paraguay, on the shores of Ypacarai Lake, is a playful riff on tropical architecture inspired by lush natural surroundings and jazz’s boundless creativity. The 260 sq m retreat, designed by architects Horacio Cherniavsky and Viviana Pozzoli, reflects their passion for jazz, evident in the house’s layout, which riffs on alternative patterns of solid and void, resembling the notes and pauses of a musical score.
Horacio Cherniavsky and Viviana Pozzoli, Co-founders, Equipo de Arquitectura, said: “There is a profound similarity between architecture and music, in the initial process of composition. Although music is the most abstract art form and architecture is the opposite, the way in which both disciplines are composed shares many points in common.” The pair liken their approach to that of jazz pianist Bill Evans, who once said about the music genre: “You use your intellect to break down the materials, learn to understand them, and learn to work with them. But in reality, it takes years and years of practice to develop the skill necessary to be able to forget all that, relax, and just play.”
Equipo de Arquitectura’s own years of practice have involved projects such as the studio’s own HQ in Asunción, a low-cost rammed-earth building completed in 2017; a Jenga-inspired installation for Hello Wood 2020, a summer festival for architecture in Argentina; and the 2022 Casita San Ber, a courtyard-garden home embodying Ludwig Mies van der Rohe’s “almost nothing” approach. Horacio Cherniavsky and Viviana Pozzoli added: “We believe that the initial process of composing an architectural project connects and resonates with what Evans proposes. Jazz uses a foundation as a structure to define the boundaries of music; within that framework, instruments take turns improvising or intuitively accommodating themselves to a pre-existing structure. Silences are as important as notes, and rhythm is what organises the distribution of sounds in time.”
At A Forest in the House, this rhythm involves a series of spaces set in a fenced-in garden, including a terrace with a small pool and hammock, and three pavilions built out of compressed earth blocks. The biggest houses the kitchen, dining and living areas, while the two smallest, linked by an indoor-outdoor patio, each host an en-suite bedroom. All rooms feature large floor-to-ceiling glass sliding doors that open onto the surrounding greenery.
Image Courtesy: Wallpaper
