Canda Gazaneo Ungar Arquitectos

Canda Gazaneo Ungar Arquitectos completes housing block in Buenos Aires

This building is located in a 10 mts. wide plot, in a typically urban block in Buenos Aires. The 12 two-storey residential units are split in two compact blocks bridged by a lightweight steel tower which connects them. This structure contains the lift shaft, the main stair and the connecting bridges.

Due to the fact that the street was so narrow, the building was recessed to gain privacy from its neighbours, but recomposes the street front with a light frame. This steel grid with wooden deck floors attached to the building façades act both as the apartment expansion terraces and as louvers that guarantee filtered natural light and heat control.

During the night the building interacts, turned on as a light box, with the steel frame making it look like a Chinese shadow puppet. Both blocks float over the ground floor, resting on eight concrete columns and gaining lightness and visuals from the street entrance through the rear yard, which was kept like a small garden.