Photography: www.luisbarandiaran.com
This building was the commission of a developer, on a large parcel of 20 x 60 meters, located on street 5 between 42 and 43 of the city of La Plata.
The central, commercial and administrative area is located a few blocks from the intervention, as well as most of the faculties, despite which the area has not yet lost its "neighborhood" characteristics.
Curiously, the code did not allow more than 4 levels in that area, and having almost 3000 m2 of FOT to be built, the decision was to design 2 buildings / blocks (one at the front and one at the back of the lot) separated by a central courtyard, where there was a pair of existing century-old palm trees, which gave it a very special feature.
We develop a vehicular and pedestrian access street along the lot and perpendicular to the buildings, linking them spatially and functionally. This street is alternating covered and uncovered spaces, access to buildings through a staircase or elevator on both sides, a central courtyard, parking spaces and access to the Ground Floor apartments.
In turn, each building has a staircase of concrete steps and an elevator to access the open shields with technical mesh floor, which gives transparency, spaciousness and great brightness to them throughout the height.
The program required a variety of functions and typology with housing / offices: one, two and three bedrooms, in addition the departments of the third floor had to have their respective terraces for their own use.
For this reason it is sought to work with fully flexible plants and thus divide them into three, two or one unit per block, according to the requested requirement.
The structure of reinforced concrete, which is visible, responds to this flexibility proposed by the project, using continuous slabs and mezzanines without beams.
Regarding the materiality of the set, exposed concrete was used for partitions, slabs, beams and ceilings, gray brick seen with flush vertical joint and horizontal joint taken in exterior street walls and bearings.
For the bearings, technical floor type grids were used on double "T" profiles.
The color notes are seen in the access doors to the apartments and lift, added to a careful design of signage in halls.
This is a multifamily housing building with urban character, open, with a succession of spaces and public places, a reinterpretation of La Plata’s apple.