CCDH Office / Ignacio Montaldo Arquitectos

Architects: Ignacio Montaldo Arquitectos / Ignacio Montaldo y Eugenio Ottolenghi
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Client: Centro de Consignatarios Directos de Hacienda
Project Year: 2006
Construction Year: 2006-2007
Collaborators: Juan Manuel Munari & Silvia Colomboa
Contractor: Project Management S.A.
Structural Engineering: Pablo Galotto
Lighting: Verónica de la Cruz
Electrical Engineering: Daniel Milito
Services: Eduardo Gamulín
Sun protection: Arq. Laura Dardano
Site Area: 371 sqm
Constructed Area: 740 sqm
Photographs: Daniela Mac Adden

It is a small office building for rent, standing on the corner of Dardo Rocha and Tres Sargentos streets in Acassuso, a town in the Province of Buenos Aires. The property ground is 26m x 14,45 m on the sides and 372m2 of surface, located within a suburban environment where low houses prevail.

The purpose of the building, lot performance, urban planning and construction codes define the building’s volumetry, a 7,70m x 18,80m x 8,50m prism, with the use of the whole property, including the basement for parking and engine room, recovered in the surface as garden cover.

The main decision was to locate the free ground plan on the corner, in order to take advantage of the lineal park and racetrack ample views, moving the vertical circulation core and the access to building to the back of the property on Tres Sargentos Street. On the ground floor, part of the property is taken by the sidewalk to encourage access through the corner.

We used a reinforced concrete structure with a 65 cm high perimeter beam and 25 cm high louvered slabs that solve gaps of about 7x 8mts. The building envelope was made of brick, which was carefully applied according to its use in each parament. Therefore, brick works as a “bath curtain” in the centre, as a “parasol” in the staircase and as fence on the ground floor. All the project was thought based on brick measures in order to avoid their being cut.

We paid special attention to joint measures between bricks and their depth. Horizontal joints are 1cm thick, while those of 2cm were taken as 2,5 cm in order to hide the support mortar.

Glass panes were protected with exterior roller shades made of black vinyl and polyester fabric punctured as a warbler, avoiding the loss of the view and crossed ventilation, and at the same time reducing the rise of temperature due to solar radiation.