Buenos Aires, Argentina
Martin Caparroz of Caparroz Arquitectura presents his latest project, the Hibiscus Building, a residential building that reflects the speed of changes in lifestyles, and seeks to provide flexibility in its spaces so that they can be adapted to the contemporary lifestyle and be indeterminate in the face of an unknown future.
According to Caparroz “most of the houses that are currently being built, turn out to be architectures diagrammed by orders established in another era and according to other needs, they are more rigid models framed in an idea of family and a way of life destined to endure. The conflict is generated when these established orders and ways of living change, at that moment we find buildings that cannot satisfy the changes.”
The architect needed to think of evolutionary systems in continuous redefinition with the axis in the inhabiting organism, the individual can change through architecture and architecture through the individual, for this, the important thing is to think about the questions that speak of the processes of inhabiting.
The Hibiscus Building starts from the search for subordinate planning and technology to a varied and flexible adaptation of the built environment to the individual, incorporating changing conditions as a positive element of the project, for which a design capable of withstanding the passage of time is necessary, both functional and aesthetic.
From an aesthetic point of view, the idea of replacing contemporaneity with timelessness arises.
The building is a strict cube wrapped on its perimeter with bricks that ages favorably and without maintenance, a “pure” form, which is ultimately the most flexible way to allow continuous change and renewal.
The architects have designed this cubical structure between dividing walls, creating strategic openings, and in the full parts, housing voids that function as plenary sessions where facilities and structure are found, contemplating spaces for future needs.
“The game of solids and voids not only responds to the program but also to the environmental behavior and imprint of the building,” explains Martin Caparroz.
From the functional point of view, the architects have created three free floors contained within the cube that place the vertical circulations on its sides, culminating in a light roof, which contemplates the structural possibility of being recycled and thus adding another level contained within the form.
The free floors use recyclable construction technologies and materials inside, therefore, instead of projecting a space for a certain program, a structure open to different appropriations is offered.
In the current case, a program of six functional units was proposed, two made up of a minimum module of habitable surface and the other four by two modules, of which one is incomplete and has, in the first instance, the possibility to progress by increasing its surface.
Once the entire possible building area has been completed, the functional units made up of two modules will have the possibility of being divided, thus generating two independent functional units.
The process can be reversed by merging modules. Being a support to the physical and symbolic occupation needs, in constant change, is the main argument of the project.
Project: Hibiscus Building
Architects: Caparroz Arquitectura
Lead Architect : Martin Caparroz
Photographers: Albano García
