Ignacio Fanti’s home and artist residency sits on roughly one and a half acres on the banks of the Rio Negro, about 20 minutes from Resistencia, the capital of the Chaco province in Argentina. But with its overgrown vegetation and wildlife, it feels remote, something he yearned for after so many years of living in big cities.

He was born and raised in Resistencia but spent a decade between Buenos Aires, Italy, and Berlin, carving out a career as an artist. When Ignacio purchased the property with his father, he initially stayed in the more modern and larger of its two buildings while he planned the next phase. Keen to further pursue artistic endeavors, he began reimagining the structures as his first home and a space to host artists and workshops.

Ignacio has been friends with architect Daiana Katz, a founder of Este Norte studio, since childhood. The two reconnected over Ignacio’s plans and began working with the firm’s other founders, architects Agostina Vacca Arreseygor and Nahuel Zampayo, on a vision for the property. Ignacio was actively involved with the redesign; he says he become obsessed with Paraguayan architecture around 2017, coincidentally when Katz was working for architect Solano Benítez, who’s known for his radical use of brick.

“The truth is that I drew the house myself on a napkin, I remember, when I was sitting with Dai,” Laughs Ignacio. “I wanted it to have details from every place I lived in when I was a kid, or architectural ideas that have resonated with me since childhood.” Among them are arched doors and windows, a nod to the nautical accents of the streamlined Art Deco house he lived in as a child. Ignacio later translated the napkin sketch to an existing wall inside one of the structures, which was used by workers to create formal plans during construction.

Work began in early 2021, and of the two buildings on the property, the team chose the older ranch-style cottage to turn into Ignacio’s home. It was totally rundown, set a mere 13 feet from the riverbank, but with its siting came built-in regulatory permissions for a remodel, which are otherwise tricky to obtain in Chaco. Ignacio and Estudio Norte kept the original footprint, knocking down all interior walls except the one enclosing the bathroom and raising the ceilings throughout. On the west side of the plan is now a living and dining area, which is open to a kitchen on the east side that has a view of the river. An expansion on the south side encloses a new bedroom, delineated in part by a long planter in the floor.

Because windows surrounding the home bring in plenty of greenery, Ignacio was selective with color inside. “For example, I wanted the bathroom to be completely green, the only place with color in the house,” he says. “And I didn’t want many plants inside, because outside everything is green, so I needed some visual rest.”

“From our side, what we were most interested in bringing to the project were technical and environmental solutions,” says Katz. Estudio Norte installed a brick breeze-block wall along the west facade that forms an entry while filtering morning light through windows along the living space, an important measure given Resistencia’s subtropical summer climate. A brick partition in the kitchen and more brick elements in the bathroom “tie visually to the filter,” says Katz. “Using the same material helped the project feel cohesive.” Part of the new roof structure, a concrete gutter positioned between the bedroom and the living spaces collects rain from the sloping roofs, directing it to the river side of the house—“a symbolic gesture of returning water to the Río Negro, which is heavily polluted and poorly treated by the city,” says Katz.

Ignacio made the most of his $8,000 budget—by his own admission the sum total of his savings at the time—thanks to a combination of factors. In 2021, the costs of construction and materials in Argentina were exceptionally low. Additionally, he was able to secure discounts and recycle surplus building materials from his family’s business of constructing and operating educational facilities. (Este Norte estimates the project materials would have cost around $32,500 out of pocket.) He sourced phenolic plywood for the ceiling and central column formwork, which runs the length of the roughly 1,000-square-foot house. The most expensive element of the project was galvanized electrical pipes, although he was able to purchase them at discount.

Work was completed in 2023. The other building on the property, which is more modern and was left as is, now serves as the artist residency and accommodation. Ignacio furnished it with flea market finds and other objects sourced from his family, and designed all the lighting ad hoc using recycled or cheap materials in collaboration with Estudio Norte.

The residencies are held three times a year and last one month, with two artists staying at a time. Ignacio often keeps them company, as the artists spend much of their down time in the living/kitchen area of Ignacio’s house, which was designed for hosting. At times he’ll swap homes with an artist, letting them take over his one-bedroom. But fundamental to the property is a dialogue between the two accommodations, the river setting, and the artists who come to visit Ignacio and experience his long-held vision for a place outside the city.

More from Este Norte:

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

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Este Norte Estudio / @este.norte.estudio

Builder/General Contractor: Gonzalo Cabas

Also Appears In

One Napkin Sketch, Then Wall Drawings: How an Artist Realized a Residency in Argentina