In Montevideo, in the far south of Uruguay, the studio FROM has completed the renovation of a house built in 1956 and left unused for years. Located in a residential neighborhood characterized by narrow lots and slight differences in elevation, the intervention completed in 2024 aims to reinterpret the domestic memories of the owners and, at the same time, give back a sequence of spaces that enhance not only the house itself but above all the time spent inside it. One decision was fundamental: overturning the original functional logic. The lower floor, once used as a garage, has been cleared of partitions and transformed into the new heart of domestic life. Whereas in the 1950s design access to the home was via an external staircase leading directly to the first floor, FROM introduces a descending ramp that leads from street level to the new living area on the lower floor, passing through a garden of spontaneous vegetation.
With Nativa House, FROM transforms a 1950s garage into a living space open to the garden
In this 1950s Uruguayan home, FROM overturns the house’s original functional layout and, with a pedestrian ramp, creates an unexpected relational space opening to the outdoors.
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Axonometric view
Greenhouse axonometric view
Foto Aldo Lanzi
First floor
Green House
Foto Aldo Lanzi
Foto Aldo Lanzi
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- Francesca Critelli
- 14 November 2025
- Montevideo, Uruguay
- FROM
- 220 sqm
- residential
- 2024
One decision was fundamental: overturning the original functional logic. The lower floor, once used as a garage, has been cleared of partitions and transformed into the new heart of domestic life.
This strategy, in addition to recovering space for the living area, allows for continuity between the internal and external spatial systems, now conceived as a single unified organism. The removal of the pre-existing internal staircase, the partitions, and part of the façade highlights the original load-bearing structure and visually lightens the building. Now, a hybrid indoor–outdoor staircase connects the two levels, positioned outside the perimeter of the house and extending to the semi-circular greenhouse–workshop placed on the roof. This space — a true added value to the home — serves as an additional area for collective domestic life and as a new viewpoint over the garden and the city.
Despite the transformation, the 1950s identity remains through a careful language of material and formal references: the pill-shaped openings, the service bathroom fitted into a cabin rotated with respect to the floor grid, and the decision to keep the existing structure exposed all restore continuity and memory to the whole.
Ground floor
Stairs
Section