2024
MCHAP
EDIFICIO 11 DE SEPTIEMBRE
DEL PUERTO - SARDIN ARQUITECTOS + BERSON ARQUITECTURA
CIUDAD DE BUENOS AIRES, CIUDAD DE BUENOS AIRES, Argentina
August 2022
PRIMARY AUTHOR
VALERIA DEL PUERTO (Project and construction management)
CONTRIBUTING AUTHOR
DIEGO COHEN (PROJECT TEAM), EDUARDO DINER (STRUCTURAL ENGENEERING)
CLIENT
DIMAK DESARROLLOS INMOBILIARIOS SRL
PHOTOGRAPHER
ALBANO GARCIA
OBJECTIVE
VOLUMETRIC
One of the main objectives was the search for the singularity of architecture, while constituting a proposal in solidarity with the urban front of the immediate environment. The built solid is a continuous volume that generates a front on September 11th street, wraps around the interior courtyard, and then penetrates into the heart of the block resting on the long party wall, where it culminates step by step towards the back of the plot. In the smaller lot on Paroissien street, the built volume completes the block's fabric and the interior space. The interior courtyard houses the vertical core and the accesses to the units materialized by open walkways, and allows for cross ventilation of the interior spaces.
REINVENTION OF THE INNER BLOCK LANDSCAPE
Towards the inner block heart, the architecture terraces in cascade with the generation of a collective space of environmental quality, with a predominance of greenery. On the first floor plan, the common areas are located with a meeting room, the pool, and the solarium. This meeting place becomes the social center of the whole complex.
MATERIALITY
The building's structure is made of reinforced concrete, while the envelopes are concrete partitions in the courtyards and black cement cladding on the facades. Concrete and black cement dialogue with the lush vegetation that is introduced into the complex, both in the large planters and in the green terraces. Wood is incorporated into the building's base as a friendly material that accompanies pedestrians as they walk along the sidewalk.
CONTEXT
The City of Buenos Aires presents in many of its streets and avenues a gray landscape with a scarcity of tree mass and vegetation. This is the case of the Núñez neighborhood. That is why the September 11 complex aims to reinvent the urban landscape to make it more human and friendly.
SCULPTURAL VOCATION
The constructed bodies are formed by slabs of changing silhouettes that generate voids, bridges, and double heights that dynamize the space. A system of concrete planters arranged in diverse forms also emerges from the building in different directions, generating a bristly skin. Vegetation is incorporated as another material that colonizes the expansions and the landscaped terraces; with its organicity, its colors, its perfume, and the movement caused by the breezes, it generates a strong component of uncertainty that gravitates in the architecture. This loss of control balances the imprint of reason. The use of native vegetation attracts birds and butterflies, transforming the building into an urban oasis. The body facing September 11th street is pierced in the central area where the double-height access hall is located as a detached piece that allows permeability to the interior of the complex.
PERFORMANCE
The complex became an urban landmark, generating a synthesis between architectural singularity and continuity of the urban front of the block. The singularity arises from its sculptural vocation of its bristly profile, the transparency generated from the street towards the interior of the block, as well as the contribution of vegetation that turns it into a vertical garden.
It is an architecture that enables greater experimentation with the senses, deepening awareness of the passage of seasons and different times of the day. An architecture that aims to increase the cosmicity of urban living.
The large cultivated expansions result in greater appropriation of the physical environment, a less frequent practice in contemporary city life. The objective is to achieve greater connection with the outside and with the sky. The building houses a community of 12 housing units, all different and designed for each family like a tailor-made suit, strongly articulated by the architecture and the common spaces generated in the inner block heart. They are twelve unique houses grouped in the same complex. A constant was the importance given to outdoor expansions, provided with abundant vegetation. Other common features were cross ventilation and optimal natural light.
