B928

Rafaela, Argentina

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B928

Rafaela, Argentina

Firm

Claudio Walter Arquitectos

Type

Residential › Apartment Student Housing

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2012

SIZE

0 sqft - 1000 sqft

Photos

Ramiro Sosa - Fotografía de Arquitectura (1)

Rafaela is a small city with a population of 100,000 in the interior of Argentina. It has a strong metalworking industry and is in a highly productive agricultural region. The university educational offerings have grown exponentially in recent years and as a result the student population has demanded housing units.

In a neighborhood of low houses following the code of urban building with regard to land occupation, maximum heights, and ratio of parking lots, the demolition of a century-old home without historical value afforded us an area of good proportions.

The proposal is separated from the party wall and takes advantage of the spatial expansion from the street into the depth of the plot, giving rise to a lateral façade that participates in the three-dimensional composition. This objective emphasizes its image.

The building was designed for structural simplicity (using le Corbusier’s domino concept of mezzanines without beams) and a volumetric unit framed in a rectangular prism that is functionally organized. A vacuum enhancing the livability of the apartments is the only change in volume and is located in the central area, in correspondence with the main circulation of the grouping.

Despite the rigidity of the program and the economic constraints, we try to provide quality housing units optimizing the use of solar power and natural climate conditioning.

Being an investment project, durability and low maintenance were priorities but not exclusively, as it was our intent to meet quality standards that are reflected in the design. The building mixes traditional reinforced concrete construction with industrialized exterior walls and interior partitions. The enclosures were made to have a ventilated façade to improve water and thermal insulation and are composed of blocks of autoclaved cellular concrete (ACC) coated by a pre-painted sheet placed on galvanized profiles. Lapacho (Tabebuia) wood, combined with stainless steel and laminated glass, define the main façade.