At the beginning of the last century, it was common to build small houses of the type popularly known as "CASA CHORIZO", located in the central area of the city with its own conceptual characteristics .
The project is located in downtown San Luis, the capital of the province of the same name. It consists of a re-functionalization of a house from 1930. The main idea is to adapt the house into two sectors, a lawyer’s office and a one-person apartment.
The project limitations implied the responsibility of reforming a space that had a clearly well accentuated footprint in its interior spatiality.
Without changing the area, established by the house itself, the minimum number of interventions should be carried out so that the house / studio can function separately, while preserving the typology in the best way, and avoiding getting into the main structure of the house.
The project had to respond to the following demands from the client:
• A very bright office space.
• Preservation of the original floors.
• Restoration of certain elements such as doors / furniture.
• The house must respect aesthetic criteria referring to the old Casa Chorizo.
The whole essence of the house was preserved, the office boxes were adapted inside the rooms, preserving the original internal structure. However, to expand spaces and create fluidity of lighting, a color job was done to generate a better impact in the contiguous spaces of the internal patio. Custom doors were restored and created to generate internal divisions.
The division of the house / studio was adapted from the garage since it is the private entrance of the apartment and the one to the studio is the old original access to the house. In this way a separation is created: The study in front and the house in the back, taking into account that the separation between these two spaces had to be generated by the restoration of the main door.
The decision in the choice and use of materials responds to the same objective of turning each space towards the interior patio and the checkerboard waiting gallery, generating each space to be complemented with the use of colors, providing greater interior lighting and resulting in, a livable gallery / patio.
The choice of the colors of the facade (door / wall) tries to recover the color of the year 1930, doing a profound work in the restoration of the door / in the bronzes and recovering it piece by piece.
On the other hand, an attempt was made to preserve all the original floors of the house (pinotea / majolica / etc.), and in the case of this not being possible, it was decided to relocate them in various sectors, to preserve the essence of some materials in the chorizo house.
However, it was decided to intervene the gallery with a Classic '' contemporary '' porcelain tile checkerboard, of unconventional measurements, which is what breaks the main waiting room space, and playing with a classic (checkerboard) vs classic (Casa Chorizo)
Design Team: BNAA – Bravo Nieto Arquitectos Asociados
Clients: Pagano & Capello
Collaborators: Alberto Dominguez ( restauración )
Samuel Pintureria
Luis Maldonado
Luis Ariel Maldonado
Leandro Pagano
Photo credits: Fabricio Aguilar - Juan Mascia
