Malabia Building

/ Residential

2013-17

Malabia 1918, Buenos Aires.
See plans >>
Project Team

Arch. Graciana Grau (executive documentation)

Program

Multifamily residence

Area

25887.2 sqft

Renders

Juan Ignacio Rosales

Photography

Federico Kulekdjian

Services

CD

Concept design

HMA Arquitectos

DD

Design Development

HMA Arquitectos

CD

Construction documents

HMA Arquitectos

Abstract

Located in the Palermo neighborhood, a few meters from Plaza Armenia and in the middle of a residential and commercial area, the M1918 project seeks to provide a solution to the high demand of mono-environmental residential and professional apartments through spatial quality units.

The building occupies the entire surface of the plot generating a compact and homogeneous building volumen, divided into three blocks by internal courtyards, containing all 22 units. Three floors and two basements with garage complete the 2405m2 of built area. The shape of the building is the maximum volumen allowed by the Building Code of the City of Buenos Aires.

The entrance to the building proposes the experience of access as a promenade, crossing a semi-urban sidewalk, in double height, and crossing the irregular semi-covered areas defined by the upper blocks. Green walls, patios and side walls, added to the semi-covered double height, make the access a real travel experience.

Starting from the client’s requirement to achieve the maximum number of functional units within a small footprint, the design sought from the outset to give each of them spatial quality by flooding them with natural light and offering them generous and private external extensions. The design approach was to solve each of the building’s blocks by locating 2 units per floor, and in a transverse direction to the party walls, in order to free in all cases the longest façade and place the windows.

Each unit has its own external, private, wide, green and luminous extension. This explains the decision to separate the building from the front line, creating a space between the “street façade” and the building façade itself, and placing balcony terraces in this space.

The maximum expression of the project lies in the “encastre” between the terraces and the interior spaces: the use of materials aims at a visual chromatic homogeneity. Both the façade and the interiors are solved by showing the complexity of the structure (fair-faced concrete), accompanied by the openings (large glass panels), which are accommodated according to the laws determined by the concrete.