1504 Roosevelt Avenue / RSVP

Our friends from RSVP shared with ous a project in San Juan, Puerto Rico, where a successful advertising agency wants to expand its current facilities on their present site in San Juan’s Roosevelt Avenue, where surrounding buildings have also undergone a process of urban densification.

More images and architect’s description, after the break.

The existing building is a two story modernist box from the sixties occupying the central part of the lot and leaving suburban-like setbacks on all four sides. The additive strategy takes advantage of these leftover spaces and proposes all new programs to take place along the setbacks.

An interesting reversal occurs where the original building now becomes the courtyard, and the side courts become buildings.

The main office slab tilts towards the courtyard maximizing floor area and creating an asymmetrical counterpart to the more fluid gallery volume in front. The office slab has an operable window shade system
that doubles as hurricane protection. Both features are essential in the tropics.

The roof of the existing building is activated by a series of skylights that create a sculptural roof garden to be occupied as an urban courtyard by the agency’s employees.