San Telmo Hotel

The building is located in one of the preserved areas within the ever changing Buenos Aires. San Telmo is one of the oldest neighborhoods in the City; this area was originally inhabited by dock workers and European immigrants. The division of the block responds to the city’s old urban scene. The lot has 7.60mts on the front, which is even narrower that the typical 8.66 defined by the English planning code. The project is a low budget hotel for young people, such as students and tango dancers. To the left of the site there is a house form the beginning of the century; to its right social housing from the 60’s. The building’s ground floor is intended as a commercial local. The idea was to establish an icon building in a quarter that is experiencing urban transformation, and from this building growth, to create an architectural object that will express its intrinsic functions. The façade is the element that constitutes the architectural expression trying to generate a “communicational” interface between the building and the City. The building’s skin, materialized with red alucobon, covers the full width of the batch, hiding the balconies and the bedrooms windows.