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Architects: Ignacio Szulman arquitecto
- Area: 10764 ft²
- Year: 2022
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Photographs:Javier Agustín Rojas
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Manufacturers: Matyser, Mosaicos Rossi
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Lead Architects: Arq. Ignacio Szulman y Arq. Valentín Pedroza
Text description provided by the architects. Were they born at the same time? Do they have the same parents? Did they change over time?
A significant number of sister houses feature our city and other cities and towns in the country. Paired houses, which appear to be the same, but are not. Either to distinguish one from the other, or to meet the needs of different customers, or because they were the same and changed over time.
In Maure, in the first instance, we had access to a first lot on which we made a project of three houses. Once presented to the municipality and already advanced in the process, we had the possibility of accessing the adjoining lot to enlarge the project. The first sketches of this new project tended towards unity with the previous one, but the difficulty of being able to make them compatible, since one had two floors and the other required three, meant that the result of the unit was not favorable.
So we resort to this idea of sister houses, houses that cannot be exactly the same because they respond to different needs, but that want to complement each other in order to enhance themselves. So we decided that the volume would be similar, respecting the total height of the complex and the dimensions of the courtyard corridor in the middle, but differentiating them in materiality. One set is white, with high ceilings and vaulted ceilings. The other is brick and wooden windows.
The corridor courtyard is another of the guidelines that make up the project. Reviewing the history of housing complexes in the city of Buenos Aires, we find that the first low-income housing units were grouped in “conventillos”. These were rooms that ventilated and shared a single courtyard from which access was made. The “coventillo” evolved towards the “Cité” model where the houses ventilate towards a single corridor/courtyard that connects with the street and serves as access. It's an outdoor space that has something of a street and a bit of a patio. In some examples, such as the Pasaje General Paz, located in the city of Buenos Aires, the corridor connects two streets, forming a kind of private passage. However, these dwellings had the problem of facing each other while lacking intimacy.
Our intention was to reformulate this corridor to the current times. While in the Cité model it was perpendicular to the street and all the rooms were ventilated and illuminated, in Maure's houses we made it parallel so that it serves only as a secondary patio to access the units and to generate cross ventilation.
