Two Conde Houses / HM.Arquitectos

Curated by ArchDaily

Architects: HM.Arquitectos
Year: 2012
Photographs:Federico Kulekdjian

Text description provided by the architects. From the beginning, this project had to respond to two different voices, ie two clients. Both required the same amount of square meters in their future homes. It is perhaps the greatest achievement of this project, to have understood how to complete the entire buildable volume equally for both owners, without any of them losing access to almost the entire size of the lot, in width and length. This required a strategy that consisted of distributing crosswise the area that corresponded to both, so that both units rotate through the axis of the central courtyard like a centrifuge. To achieve cross-connection of both properties without losing m2, we decided to "externalize" the stairs, as if they were bridges connecting the two units.

Volumes

The silhouette of the building is a result of the completion of the largest buildable volume possible that the building code of the city of Buenos Aires allowed by neighborhood. For the best use of buildable m2, we preserved two sectors of the former property, incorporating them into the project with a change in program, clearly manifested through the exposed brick vault, bringing added value to the work. The new building recalls the old spatial organization positioned over the old traces of the old courtyard house, adapting the old layout of the ground floor to the two new homes. The A house on the ground floor plus two levels has 4 rooms and the B house of equal height has 5 rooms. Both properties are staggered freeing terraces both the front and the back.

Void operations

We have the idea of identifying the wall as an element that is different from the structure. This operation is manifested in the front and back facades, seeking a solid wall facade whose window operations are subtraction, leaving the structure exposed. These void operations were completed by a system of shutters and railings of balconies whose folds and textures intended to express besides the nuance of light, a continuous verticality throughout the development of both facades, achieving a balance of empty and full bands in front of the large neutral wall volume of the project. The interior courtyard that organizes the circulations, has a traditional window treatment, giving prominence of the space to its multi-directional stairs. The greatest achievement of this project was to adapt under the traces of the old building, two houses whose volumetric ambition exceeded the capacity of the site and through a strategy of simple circulatory connections will be able to occupy the whole site for both houses.