© Gonzalo Viramonte
- Architects: Adolfo Mondejar Estudio de Arquitectos
- Location: Jorge Luis Borges 489, 5151 La Calera, Córdoba, Argentina
- Architect In Charge: Adolfo Mondejar
- Design Team: Francisco Figueroa Astrain, Adriana Barberis
- Area: 220.0 m2
- Project Year: 2017
- Photographs: Gonzalo Viramonte
- Contractor: Victor Medrano
- Sanitary Installations: Jorge & Claudio García
- Electrical Installations: Alejandro Massaro
- Work Blacksmithing: Pinto & Barreto Herrería de Obra
- Structural Calculation: Ing Jose Luis Gomez, Arq Ivan Salgado
© Gonzalo Viramonte
Text description provided by the architects. The place is located on the outskirts of La Calera, 20 km away from Cordoba. Urban developments are becoming a housing option specially for young families. The neighbourhood is designed in a former quarry where the topography, the existing vegetation and the impressive views from the city of Cordoba are priorities for the location. A block here allows the subdivision in condominium and this is what leads to the project.
© Gonzalo Viramonte
Section 1
© Gonzalo Viramonte
Section 2
The plot presents a strong slope having the highest point in the street. The project proposes an alternative to the commercialization of this type of housing, adapting the available budget and prioritazing location, landscape, dwelling posibilities, and benefits for the neighbourhood, not just for the plot, trying to utilize the resources at hand in the best possible way.
© Gonzalo Viramonte
The idea starts from the impressive connection between landscape, nature, the necesity to preserve the native arboreal species and the opportunity to preserve the views from the street, proposing a lookout in the access floor, where there are located the parking lot and two benches for contemplation of the landscape and the distant city.
© Gonzalo Viramonte
Living floor plan
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The design is resolved in regular floor plans, the first one contains the living room, kitchen, laundry room and toilet linked to a balcony that has the dimension of the entire space, creating a unique environment with exclusive views of the landscape. In the lower floor are resolved the bedrooms and the main bathroom linked by a space with the possibility of being used as a living room – bedroom or as a study. The warehouse, the water heater and the pipes are gather in a space that separates the cliff from the building and proposes the isolation of the dampness from the land.
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The project pretends to solve with precision the decisions about economy without losing quality in the design, understanding that lansdcape is imperative and that the vegetal species must be preserved at the cost of constructive and location efforts. The roof deck is an opportunity for the neighbourhood to recover the emptiness and permeability that houses in general are not proposing these days.
Sketch 01
The materials used were bought beforehand, stocking ceramic bricks and pretensioned joists, which are the base of the construccion. The wall cladding proposed is a mixture of cement and split stone, similar to the wall cladding made with glass used in our houses from the 50’s and 60’s, creating a united surface made of the walls and floor. The ironwork and handrails were made with mild steel bars of 18 inches diameter with matte lacquer to recover the natural tone of iron. The roof deck is resolved with split stone linked with the colors of the stone from the site. Reserve tanks were placed under the entry stairs to hide them. Bathroom wall cladding is designed with granitic mosaics and some sanitary devices were reutilized in both the main bathroom and the guest bathroom.
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Because of the strong slope of the site, the two blocks do not appropriate the land having therefore a dominating base of native vegetation in the mountain. The proposed lighting is only expresed in the roof deck to discover the arboreal species, letting in the shadows the other vantage points allowing to enhance the landscape of far city lights, and the existing darkness between the neighbourhood and Cordoba’s downtown.
Sketch 04
The project tries to go to the necessary, to the decisions that have an impact on the architecture made with average resources, away from the commercial signs that lead the landscape of these neighbourhoods nowadays.
© Gonzalo Viramonte