Project material
- Category
- Coliving
- Typology
- Non-subsidized housing
- Year
- 2025 - 2027
- Area
- 4404 m²
- Program
- 107 apartments
- Location
- Bogotá
- Neighborhood
- Antiguo Country
- City
- Bogotá, Cundinamarca
Exclusive coliving
Casa de Arte grows out of a simple idea: that living in the city can also be a sensory experience — that art, planting, light and places to meet can be part of everyday life.
That is how we approached the project: not as an isolated piece, but as a building able to hold life inside and, at the same time, give something back to the city.
On a plot with a single street front near Calle 85, in Bogotá's Antiguo Country, the building gathers 107 apartments above a ground floor that steps back from the street to hold the gallery, the coworking space and the shared areas. The setbacks the plot imposes turn into terraces, and the roof closes the sequence open to the eastern hills.
A schematic design argued drawing by drawing.
Between February and July 2025 the design advanced through intense iterations: unit-type schedules, several floor-plan options, a stair proposal, preliminary structural sizing and client observations at every round — including a survey of the neighbouring building's facade to fit the tower into its context. The project is still young: what the images show is the outcome of that back-and-forth between the sketch and the code.
A single frontage. A single-frontage site near Calle 85 in Antiguo Country: the design starts from everything buildable and lets the place carve it. A floor for the street. The ground floor steps back behind glass: the gallery, coworking and shared rooms open to the street, giving the building a human scale. The step. It matches the neighbor on the right and sets back on the left, where the existing building has three floors: hence the main step. 107 homes. 107 homes above an open base, with galleries running through the shared spaces and circulation. Terraces. The steps imposed by the site become green terraces, and the roof ends the journey open to the Eastern Hills. Solids and voids. A facade of solids and voids framed at one and two storeys: shade and depth outside, furniture and closets inside. The building. The full model: one- and two-storey frames toward the street, the glass pergola over the step and the green terraces. The finishes. Two bricks make the facade: dark cocoa on the frames and cappuccino on the side walls.
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The volume
The maximum buildable volume, the project's point of departure.
It all begins with a volume. On a plot near Calle 85, with a single front onto the street and surrounded by existing buildings, we started from everything we could possibly build. From there, the place and its conditions begin to give the building its shape.
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Answering the neighbours
A match on the right, a setback on the left: the neighbours carve the volume.
The volume begins to change according to what happens on each side. On the right, the height of the neighbouring building lets us make a volumetric match. On the left, where the existing building has only three storeys, the lateral setback appears, and with it the building's main step. To this we add the Type 3 planning incentive, through open ground, a semi-intensive green roof and open area over slab: those three conditions let us take the lateral setback from 11.40 m to 15.70 m. The form thus appears as a direct answer to the place.
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Opening onto the city
The ground floor steps back to gain pedestrian scale and open the shared spaces to the street.
On the ground floor we made a different decision: to step back. Instead of taking the volume all the way to the front of the plot, we freed the base to create a scale closer to the pedestrian and to open the shared spaces towards the street. This level becomes more transparent and glazed, and the life happening inside starts to be part of the street: people arriving, meeting one another and using the common areas. This is the point where Casa de Arte begins to meet the city.
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Giving the building its shape
Two prisms: a base and a volume projected over it that seems to levitate.
With these decisions the massing of Casa de Arte appears. Two prisms meet: a base and a second volume projected over it. It is a piece with presence and weight, yet by separating from the ground floor it seems to levitate. The steps and setbacks born from the site are no longer just a condition of the plot: they become terraces and new spaces to inhabit.
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A facade that is lived in
Single- and double-height frames: shade outside, furniture inside, planting along the edge.
The facade is built from solids and voids, with single- and double-height frames that frame the windows, give depth and reinforce the building's verticality. Those recesses also help produce shade, shelter and a more comfortable relationship between inside and outside. Inwards, the frames become furniture, wardrobes and usable space; outwards, they carry planting and make the facade feel closer, greener and more inhabited. It is not only about how the building looks, but about how it is lived in.
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Casa de Arte
One lighter volume and one darker, over a base that is open and full of life.
Casa de Arte finally appears. The materials make the meeting of the two volumes explicit: one lighter and one darker, heavy in appearance, yet suspended over a base that is open and full of life. Inside, the shared spaces and some of the circulations become small galleries: art accompanies the route, showing up on arrival, while moving through the building and when meeting other people. The terraces and the roof complete that experience, opening towards the eastern hills and towards Bogotá. Casa de Arte seeks to make architecture, city, nature and art part of one and the same everyday experience.
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