To describe the argumentation that supports the work, we find interesting to start asking a question: How to mesh the available resources to produce an architecture that operates within the real estate market, but that does not give in to its imperatives?
Within the singularity of the productive, constructive, and social economy of Argentina in recent years, we propose a system characterized by the enhancement of industrialization and metallic structures. A01 building, in this way, constitutes a representative work within a line of thought that guides the office.
The project seeks to be part of the debate on operating on the margins of the local production of high-rise residential buildings. In defense of the idea of the architect working with systems instead of models, we propose a pragmatic approach to each project. To conceptualize this action, four references are proposed: The Industrial
architecture of the beginning of the 20th century, Venturi and Scott Brown with ‘Learning from Las Vegas’, Atelier Bow-Wow with ‘Made in Tokyo’, and Enrique Walker with ‘Lo Ordinario’. References with clear differences between them,
but with interesting overlaps in that in all cases they operate from the bottom up, they work with reality and they are fundamentally pragmatic, that is, they produce architecture as a result of the use and strategic manipulation of the means
of production.
The four approaches converge in an architecture far away from models that focus mainly on aesthetic issues. In Argentina, a vast country characterized by primary activity and the export of raw materials, many of the ideas worked on by the aforementioned authors are materialized, unconsciously, by the productive infrastructures scattered throughout the territory .When we incorporate these ideas into our work methodology, we are not only inspired by the poetics of
these anonymous and generic architectures, but we also study the industrial processes that explain them. Then, to this apparently neutral system of pieces and parts, we try to add value working under its own rules. In this way, our work
stands on the fine line between the ordinary and the extraordinary character of architecture.
A01 building is part of a series of commissions to create high-rise rental buildings for tourist and mixed use in the city of Rosario, province of Santa Fe, Argentina. The promoters of these projects belong to the steel industry, which establishes an initial constraint on the use of material and technological resources. In addition, it is not a minor fact that they deposit in our office the absolute devise of the projects, being our task to identify potential lots and the needs of the neighborhood in which it is located, establishing the corresponding program and uses of the future building. Both situations, that condition this specific project, are understood as opportunities for the development of the work.
The circumstances narrated in this brief description contribute to placing A01 building within the notion of prototype. Since, in words of Federico Soriano, a prototype is an instrument to materialize an idea and explore or test its
relationship with the reality. It is about creating something, making a physical artifact, to test, explore or communicate the design ideas of a thing, or architectural object, which is going to be projected. A prototype generates empathy, because
it deepens the understanding of the architectural object by users, customers, and also by those who are going to build or manufacture it.
