Oglo Architects have recently shared with us their “Hollow Tower” for the Buenos Aires Vertical Zoo competition. Their sculptural proposal aims to act as a polarizing object amongst its surroundings in Buenos Aires without removing itself from the context of the city. Additional images and the architects description after the break.
History erased the custom office and its pier, which was in the past the gate of the vice-royal city. The ecological reserve marks now the limit of the Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires. Like a signal, a lighthouse, the vertical zoo is set in a contrast game which dialogue with the infinite horizon, given by the “freshwater sea” as well by the Rio de la Plata and the Pampa’s plain. The building position aims to link the ecological reserve with the important urban axes like Libertador and Belgrano avenues. Privileging the South Access of the protected area, the tower’s position aims to offer a new polarity to this part of the city.
In the continuity of this opposition’s game, like a monolith rock, a menhir, the Hollow Tower emphasizes the reserve’s Nature and therefore respects it.In opposite of the strong external shape, the inside space is designed by the digging of the rocky mass. This void is moved in levitation above the ground of the ecological reserve, like a vertical receptacle of life, of the fauna and the flora, like a reserve in the reserve. The tower’s cavities receive the different animals species of the zoo, matched in independents ecosystems around the central void.
In counterpoint of this spaces, the vegetation is set in the rock parts of the building mass. The zoo visit is organized like a vertical walk-through along the sculptural interior of the menhir. From the liberated ground, the vision of this space suggests to the visitors of the ecological reserve the diversity of the animal’s universes. The aviary, in the top part of the building, both close the central void and open the building to the sky and the horizon.
Architects: Oglo Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina Project team: Emmanuel de France, Arnaud Dambrine Project Area: 3000 sqm Project year: 2009
