Vivienda Arquitectura Rifa Gen. '11
This home come up from a contest that take place every year among the students of the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism of Montevideo, Uruguay (FADU, UdelaR). Only students can participate in the contest, and the best project is chosen by a jury integrated by professors of the university. To the winner is given the opportunity to develop and build the house advised by an architect.
We won for the second in 2016 and the construction was finished on March of this year.
The neighborhood is characterized by the presence of constructions that consolidate the morphology in the frontal limits of the properties. At the same time, the bases of the contest contemplated two possibilities that come of from the regulations: the first was to use the setback area as it is and the second was to build in the whole area with agreement (not to exceed the heights of the adjacent constructions). Based on these two alternatives, the first project decision is to conserve the predominant morphology so the second option is chosen.
The implantation responds in the first instance to these guidelines. At the same time, the housing program is divided into two volumes whose activities could be distinguished as social and intimate respectively. These volumes are stacked one on top of the other to release the ground and create expansions to the outside that counteract the limited projections to the sidewalk. The social area is the one that touch the ground and also is separated from the edge of the property to avoid the restrictions that the ochava (chamfer limit) could impose to the interior space organization. Additionally, the corten steel shell appears to generate the boundary with the public space along the entire perimeter. The disposition of the ground floor allows to concentrate the service areas below the other volume encouraging to conceive the rest of the property as a single exterior space that is crossed by the living-dining area. A good orientation of the intimate area volume is considered a priority, therefore the bedrooms are projected to the northeast to get a favorable sunlight. The outer areas roofed below this volume are used for the for the main access, the garage and the secondary access.
