From the architect. “Reinforced concrete does not grow like wood, is not rolled like steel sections, is not jointed like masonry. It is more comparable with cast iron, another material cast in moulds, in which through long experience shapes have been developed which lead easily and gently from one constructive element to the next without any shock or sudden break. It is the overall view which, integrating the parts into the whole, conditions these lovely shapes.” (Robert Maillart, 1938)
This narrow office building is located in the outskirts of the city’s original checkerboard layout, on a hillside, next to a public park that runs along the street. Houses in the surroundings are placed above sidewalk level, in a balcony-like projection, leaving grass fields at near-shoulder height. The aim of the project was to restore the natural preexisting plinth, and repurposing it as a gap to widen the sidewalk and generate a small atrium, keeping the building and the houses aligned.
The building is formed monolithically in reinforced concrete with exposed finishes, alternating smooth molding for the horizontal elements, and moldings on wavy zincalume steel sheets for the vertical ones. Each mark of the casting process of the building is interesting for us as a register of its construction. We accepted, from the beginning, the possible imperfections as a contribution, not a mistake. To attain the building’s visual consistency, we added carefully studied proportional relations not only between each part of the building, but also as a whole, in an attempt to merge the structural and spatial criteria.
The building scale tries to set a precedent against the current local legislation, which allows the excessive construction of high-rise buildings over a narrow urban layout, not compatible with property speculation on the long run.
