Atelier Vilela
An arts and crafts atelier resolved in 62 m² indoors, with a perforated metal envelope.
- Status
- Completed
- Type
- Atelier, arts and crafts
- Location
- Vilela 2793, Buenos Aires
- Country
- Argentina
- Area
- 115 m²
- Year
- 2013–2014
- Team
- Arch. Fernando Hitzig
Arch. Leonardo Militello
Arch. Leonardo G. Militello
Arch. Florencia schvartzman
Construction Management & Contract Administration
The project took place in an old corner property. It is a typical house built in the mid-twentieth century considered as self-construction housing. The property is divided into three separate units. The actual project was performed on corner unit, which functioned as an old bicycle store in the neighborhood. The main objective was to operate on the existing place through an element that is not associated to what already exists. While there is not a tectonic association (material), there is from the point of view of the volumes, ie, there was a clear intention of representing a game between the upper volume in contrast to the new intervention. Qualities of the new intervention as a sloped roof expresses a contemporary nod to its neighbor mono-pitched roof. For a contrast between the contemporary and the old volume, lightweight construction system was used and corrugated iron cladding were chosen to create a purely cubic volume, thereby releasing the excess of meters to a small triangular patio. In order to give cohesion to the whole, expanded metal mesh was used to sew both the new intervention and the existing house.
The first level is constructed with pre-stressed beams and the second level with a tubular structure about 100x50 reproducing a modulation which is displayed on the facade as well. The openings and protection systems strictly respond to modulation of the new intervention, totally opposed to the old house, whose openings have no projective logic. The intervention of only 66 m2 covered was not constrained to the corner unit, it also had to solve an expansion on an old zinc roof over the adjoining unit. In this way and through an lightweight tubular structure that supports a wide wooden deck we achieved an exterior expansion of the project which is accessed from the second level. As if trying to recall the ancient craft practiced there, the destiny of the new intervention is a practical space for arts and crafts. The idea is to develop activities such as classes of jewelry, carpentry, etc. mostly on ground floor and first level, while in the upper level will take place, physical activities, yoga and meditation.
The work was carried out on an old mid-twentieth-century corner house, self-built and subdivided into three units. We worked on the corner unit, which had housed an old neighbourhood bicycle shop.
The brief was to work on the old building with an element that would not blend in at all. There is no material association, but there is a volumetric one: the existing upper volume set against the new piece, and a gable roof that nods, in contemporary terms, to the neighbouring single-pitch one.
To set the new against the old, a lightweight construction system clad in corrugated sheet was used, composing a purely cubic volume. The surplus square metres were released as a small triangular courtyard, and a mesh of expanded metal “stitches” the new intervention to the old.
The work was not confined to the corner unit: an extension had to be resolved over an old sheet-metal roof covering the neighbouring unit. A lightweight tubular system clad in timber decking produced a generous terrace, reached from the second level.
As if recalling the trade once practised there, the building is now given over to arts and crafts: silversmithing and carpentry classes on the ground and first floors, and yoga and meditation upstairs.
All photos
