Maria Cher Store

Arquitectos:
MATHIAS KLOTZ
EDGARDO MINOND

Colaboradores:
Loreto Lyon
Hernán Araujo

34°35’01.19″S
58°25’28.27″O
Buenos Aires
Argentina

Superficie casa: 400 m2
Superficie terreno: 250 m2

The project is simply a decision to generate maximum exterior surface in an existing interior space.
Maria Cher Store is in Palermo Viejo district of Buenos Aires, an area of urban renewal where commercial and residential coexist in an environment from small to medium scale buildings built up side by side. The assignment´s goal was to create a commercial program for women´s clothing on the ground floor and a two floor apartment on the upper levels. The site can be described as wide, deep, and contains 3 to 4 story buildings on three sides. The program aimed to make the most of the total constructability raising the land value to its maximum without exceeding the maximum percentage of the ground occupation and ensuring sufficient amount of natural light through the utilization of the building restrictions on the back of the site. The project consists of a distribution of un-buildable space over the perimeter of the lot, freeing the partition walls that generate an irregular space which creates a series of patios. This operation serves for lighting the store and the apartment from all the sides, achieving a sensation of inhabiting a garden in space of simply ventilating through the street facade and back patio as it always happens in this kind of typology.
To achieve all of this, along with the general haste of the project, we designed a perimeter steel structure that serves to support the carpentry and clothing presentation at the same time. The upper floors are covered by corrugated metal sheets. The perimeter partition wall was covered by timber to emphasize its natural character and hide its irregularities.
The apartment on the upper floor repeats the outline of the commercial zone, generating a pair of terraces in the front, offset from the facade, following the volume of the neighboring building by leaving a double height in the rear to emphasize the verticality of the lot.