Colon Building -50

Successful cities of over 3 million inhabitants are usually structured on large-scale railways supplemented by buses, exclusive lanes and other means of transportation. 08 Decentralization towards suburbs should connect preexisting conditions with transport and communication networks allowing dynamic dense flows of people, goods, services and information. 05 Railways historically structured territories with sustainability, capacity, energy, efficiency and lower contamination. 08 However, in Buenos Aires their layout has been implemented as a barrier, denying embankment basins as check-dams during water high flows. 02 Additionally, suburbs are disconnected areas with loss of character and lack of positive images in which inhabitants can identify themselves. 01 Nowadays, these places seek to recover or at least preserve their identity as economic existence and as a historical and cultural sense of self. 06 In this context, metropolization on corridors then becomes unavoidable.

The building is placed in one of the crossings of the new Western Corridors masterplan [Corredores del Oeste, Buenos Aires] in 13,400 Rivadavia Avenue, Ramos Mejia. This layout is characterized by a demographic leap from 62 to 259 habitants/hectare 03 from the neighborhoods of Caballito to Haedo. Narrow lots and an absent State in front of metropolitan voids or parks, define its surrounding with no connected areas. The program consists on flexible offices with 25,000 covered m² and 2,200 semi-covered m². Its green free ground floor allows water cycles and stimulates contact with natural environment. This symbolic implantation simplifies civic agglomeration around a strong landmark with social integration. 06 The project also seeks to encourage an affective relationship of its inhabitants with their surroundings through sensory wellbeing and a sense of identity and belonging. 01

This through-structure extends over the Maldonado stream and the New Sarmiento Underground [Soterramiento Sarmiento, Buenos Aires]. Its gantry of eight pillars of 3 x 1 m are braced by concrete partitions of 35.5 m long with beams of 3 x 1 m. They hold 16 clusters of turnbuckles and hanging slabs of 36.5 m long. These supports contrast with the rest of its light elements, framing users’ new actions and liberties. Thus, mirrored cores and high-speed panoramic elevators of 5 m² assure public southern and private northern circulation. Pivoting automated windows open gradually 6 pairs per floor. Indoor environments are easily articulated with their surrounding landscape with balconies allowing humid and passing breeze to renovate the atmosphere with fresh air.

The Rivadavia Avenue is connected by direct accesses to the railway station through the recovered natural linear park. This main public space encourages social interactions like its most vital organ. 07 Vegetation consists of willows, 02 totora reeds, soft pastures, aquatic plants and rushes. 04 Its layout is also accompanied by avenues leading to parking spaces accessible from both sides. As for public uses, the auditorium on the first floor offers visuals over the ground level to the new landscape. Finally, a public viewpoint concludes under an irregular roof as a positive reference from the axis.

01 Braga, Milton. Infra-estrutura e projeto urbano. Tese doutorado. 2.006.
02 Brailovsky, Antonio Elio. Buenos Aires, ciudad inundable. Buenos Aires: Ediciones Kaicron, Capital Intelectual, 2.011.
03 Censo Nacional de Población, Hogares y Viviendas. 2.010.
04 Corso, Alfonso. Primera Historia Completa del Partido de la Matanza. Buenos Aires: Municipio de La Matanza, 1.979.
05 Hall, Peter. The polycentric metropolis. Learning from mega-city regions in Europe. Londres: Earthscan, 2.006.
06 Herce Vallejo, Manuel; Farrerons, Joan Miró. El soporte infraestructural de la ciudad. Barcelona: Edicions UPC, 2.002.
07 Jacobs, Jane. Muerte y vida de las grandes ciudades. 1961. Madrid: Ediciones Península, 2.011.
08 Vuchic, Vukan. El Metrobús en la 9 de Julio es un error. Clarín, 30 de enero de 2.013.

Collaborators: Fabricio Contreras Ansbergs, Matías Moret, Walter De Marco.