The houses are of small size, based on a system of urban density higher than the area where it is located, all homes meet all the needs of habitability, and a terrace, which in facade due to its alternate placement creates a continuous pattern on it.
Constructively it is characterized by the use of brick that extends throughout the envelope, which is characterized by meeting the structural and cultural requirements, besides being an economical material, the study designs a set of configurations for this material, giving the building texture, lighting effects and sunshades that make it unique.
Description of project by Francisco Cadau Oficina de Arquitectura
The 20-unit multifamily housing program is developed on a centrally located lot on one of the streets parallel to the north-south axis of the city of Campana, low-density urbanization located in the northeast of Buenos Aires on the banks of the Paraná River.
The double-wide lot opens its front to a sports field that enables open views to and from the avenue.
The building is organized based on an extended plinth that connects the center of the block and the street, and a five-story main body that rises above the front portion of the lot.
The basement organizes a gradient of intermediate spaces (thresholds, ramps, halls, and expansions for community use) that control the continuity between the public space and the interior of the building.
The main body, which concentrates the dwellings and vertical circulation, is defined as a free-standing volume with perimeter retreats that variably organize the relationships with its context. On the street, a landscaped retreat preserves the existing pine tree and attenuates the impact of the volume on a pedestrian scale. On the opposite side, a large courtyard plaza recreates the conditions of the urban space and preserves an old avocado tree. Finally, on the sides, minimal setbacks allow for natural lighting and ventilation of the building's common circulations.
The building materializes a model of urban densification that, from a contemporary positioning, integrates and equalizes the demands of a growing medium-sized city with the traditions and social inertias of its inhabitants, the potential users of the building.
Through the proposal of patio terraces, the building recovers and updates, the high-rise housing typology, the forms of living typical of provincial cities where the enjoyment of the outdoors and the interaction between neighbors characterize the lifestyle.
The building is structured around a double bay of apartments with patio terraces, which take advantage of the sun from the east and west and the views of the avenue and the heart of the block.
The alternating repetition of dwellings and patio terraces organizes a three-dimensional checkerboard pattern on the facades, recognizable on an urban scale. This texture, of masses and living spaces, gives thickness and porosity to the envelope, favoring the activation of the building's margins through the use of the expansions of the dwellings and their interaction with the urban space.
The envelope is entirely made of brick, a material widely used in the culture of the region, which constitutes a technically reliable, economically affordable, and environmentally sustainable solution.
This technology allows, in turn, the development of a continuous gradient of configurations and surface performances, ranging from the simple enclosing wall to masonry with variable openwork and relief in the form of breakage of views and/or sunshades. In this way, the different thermal, lighting, and visual requirements of the program are integrated within a highly efficient and formally continuous building envelope.
