The old structure called Playa Gigena, in honor of the equestrian of the same name, located between the hippodrome and the Rosedal de Palermo in Buenos Aires, will now be converted by ODA into a Class A office building and a public park including cafes, restaurants, shops, and a covered parking lot. The partial demolition of the old parking lot has begun on June 28th.
Designed by the American architecture office ODA, the next Paseo Gigena will be the firm's first mixed-use project in the city of Buenos Aires city. The team involved in the process also includes the participation of Aisenson studio, Inscape Landscape, Coinsa, and the developer BSD Investments, to which the government has granted the concession of the property known as Ámbito Gigena, for a period of 15 years.
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"We have an abandoned concrete infrastructure that does not speak at all with its surroundings nor is useful for the city and its inhabitants," explains the architect and urban planner Álvaro García Resta, secretary of Urban Development of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires.
Eran Chen, founder of ODA states that “this project is a great example of the private sector working with the government to create a truly unique typology that will benefit the city and its citizens for decades to come".
These types of partnerships are the future. It’s ambitious and takes bravery and bold leadership on all fronts, but when this is completed we will have a park that will become an icon for the city, and quite possibly the coolest office building in the southern hemisphere. If you want to get people back to work, then we need to be thinking like this. -- Eran Chen, founder of ODA.
The mixed-use project envisioned seeks to recycle 80% of the original skeleton in order to create a building of almost 15,000 square meters. Intending to unite the two neighborhoods previously separated by the older structure, the design will include around 4,000 square meters of public terraces and open green spaces with pedestrian paths and a parking lot for 250 cars.
.jpg?1632347270 "ODA Transforms Old Parking Lot into Mixed-Use Project and Public Park in Buenos Aires")
