DOEs THE CLOCK MOVE sLOWER IN suMMER OR DO WE
simply will it to? Minutes seem to melt as hours stretch out
under the sun. Even weekends are different as rumpled
days loosen under sapphire skies. For Argentine architect
Martín Gómez, the best summer homes play by these rules.
Like the warmer months, he believes, they ought to live
easy and never worry their owners; the antipode to hurried
life in the city. “I always suggest more relaxed spaces so
that my clients can enjoy them in a different way.” Gómez
says of his second-home projects. “For this to happen, the
design has to be different. It is important that space flows
easily, both inside out and vice versa.”
Each summer, two of Gómez’s clients and their young
daughter dash out of Buenos Aires to enjoy the kind of
breezy living that his firm designed and furnished for them.
In this place, the husband, an accountant for a large firm,
escapes his spreadsheets, and his wife, a painter, soaks
up each inspiring scene. Located in a gated community
on the outskirts of José Ignacio—an old uruguayan fishing
town one half-hour’s drive from Punta del Este—their
summer home occupies coveted territory in one of south
America’s most exclusive resorts. Gómez had already
designed a number of homes in the area, and for this
couple, he envisioned an Elysian weekend cottage that
would tweak a few architectural rules to suit summer’s
simple pleasures.
In the small home, bedrooms and bathrooms were
unconventionally located on the ground floor and given
access to the garden through French doors. up one flight
of cement stairs, through the middle of the home, the
social space is situated on the second story with floor-to-
ceiling windows on all sides. From there, everyone enjoys
the prime Atlantic Ocean view, indoors or out.
