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2024

MCHAP

Casagrande Condo Hotel

Planta Studio

José Ignacio, Maldonado, Uruguay

July 2022

PRIMARY AUTHOR

Ana Rascovsky (Architect), Irene Joselevich (Architect)

CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR

Fernanda Torres (Project Manager), Florencia Rissotti (Project Manager), Julio Paolino (Construction Manager), Arturo Peruzzotti (Lighting Designer), García Faure / Anguita (Vegetation Designers

CLIENT

Federico Blizniuk

PHOTOGRAPHER

Cristobal Palma

OBJECTIVE

CIRCULATION. The central patio creates a microclimate sheltered from the wind. The internal circulation of the building is exclusively exterior, within this controlled space. From the central patio you can access the units, without interfering with their views, through a system of labyrinthine walkways, between the treetops, away from the windows, to protect privacy, and generating an attractive and social walk.
TYPOLOGIES. The building consists of 56 apartment units, with 26 different typologies, built on the three-dimensional orthogonal grid seeking variety and interesting spatiality. The grid was designed on a 4.75 x 3.15m module, which forms a minimum structural effort, and at the same time allows great flexibility for the assembly of typologies, because it allows it to contain different programs. The cloister allows each unit to be through, with a façade both to the outside and to the inside of the patio. Thus, it is possible to obtain cross ventilation and dispense with active conditioning.
OUTDOOR SPACE FOR INTENSIVE USE. Being a primarily summer building, the exterior space - and its visuals - is of utmost importance as a place of use: each apartment consists of at least one module of exterior space. These outdoor spaces are designed for intensive use, designed with incorporated vegetation, protection against the wind - the railings are made of glass - and against the sun, pergolas and eaves. The vegetation that surrounds it generates intimacy and resembles a high meadow.

CONTEXT

CasaGrande is a CondoHotel: apartments that are rented within a hotel administration. Located at the entrance of the village of Jose Ignacio, in Uruguay, it is a building that has an iconic character, due to its predominant entrance location and because it is the first building of this scale on this peninsula.
CHARACTER. It is a proposal that seeks to maintain the natural beach and wild character that characterizes the town of José Ignacio: a very hip place, with strong neighborhood attitude of keeping nature and village on its actual state.
The challenge consisted of making a building within an area that still maintains its “old fisherman village” scale, a very local style of detached individual houses, surrounded by wild local vegetation, and at the same time, generating a 6,000m2 hotel.
TETRIS. The building is a 3-level cloister, with a central patio on the first floor. The distribution of the built mass was carried out through a three-dimensional structural grid as a base, articulating it to generate an exciting spatiality and attractive volumetric situations. And that, both, the complete configuration of the building, as well as each department and its exterior surface, are harmonious.

PERFORMANCE

CAMOUFLAGE. The result is a building that camouflages itself with the environment, using native vegetation, and terracing itself in such a way as to generate less visual impact and assimilate to nature and colors of the surroundings,.
COMMUNITY. To create a separation from the busy route in front, three stores were located, forming a continuity with a set of existing adjacent stores, that contributed to creating density and forming a mini commercial hub at the entrance to the town. They are arranged in the shape of a comb, to generate access passages towards the Plaza Chica, which precedes the Condohotel. This Plaza Chica is the expansion of the restaurant, and connects with the hotel's entrance gallery.
It´s a building that enhanced the small commercial area of the entrance of the town and generated a hub for lively meeting with a restaurant, a market, a library, small little retail shop and an open gallery to stroll.
ACCEPTATION. Public opinion was very important, as it is a small town, and it is a hotel- that needs public. It had all positive opinions, both as local people accepting a big building- nice, detailed, and respectful of the environment, and also for clients, completely reserving each year its availability. ( please check public comments on @casagrande: https://www.instagram.com/casa_grande?igsh=MTJ5eG9zNWl1NDlhag==

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