IA Virrey
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Multifamily Housing

IA Virrey

Location
Bogotá
Area
2.000 m²
Program
Apartments from 48 to 215 m²
Year
2015

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Category
Multifamily Housing
Typology
Non-subsidized housing
Year
2015
Area
2.000 m²
Program
Apartments from 48 to 215 m²
Location
Bogotá
Address
Cra 18 # 85-44
Neighborhood
El Virrey
City
Bogotá, Cundinamarca
Status
Portfolio

Homes with customizable atmospheres

IA Virrey is a multi-family residential building in the El Virrey neighborhood of Bogotá, built for Mojica Constructora on a narrow party-wall lot. The site, wedged between its two neighbors, sets the rule of the project from the outset: how to house quality homes on a narrow frontage without giving up light or air.

The answer is a compact, slender eight-story volume that gathers stairs, elevator and services into a central core. That move frees the perimeter and leaves the facades available for the homes, so each floor can hold different apartment types —from loft-style units of 48 m² to the top-floor apartment of 215 m²— naturally lit and ventilated.

A concrete portico structure sustains that flexibility: it allows open, reconfigurable floor plans and frees the main facade between slabs to open it with floor-to-ceiling glazing. Over that glass plane runs a modular timber facade that residents operate by hand, adjusting in each apartment the amount of sunlight and the degree of privacy toward the street.

A walkable social rooftop terrace crowns the building and gives residents back the open sky that the lot, being so narrow, seemed to deny.

More about the project

ia Virrey is a multifamily housing building on a narrow infill lot in Bogotá. That condition posed a challenge when distributing the functional program within the available footprint so that loft-type units could be configured with natural light and ventilation.

The result is a compact, slender eight-story building with a free facade and a roof terrace for residents' social use.

The project centralizes the core and services module, freeing the building's facades, reducing management costs and optimizing circulation; it also enables different apartment typologies from 48 m² to 215 m².

ia Virrey has a modular facade system that users can operate by hand according to their needs for privacy and sunlight.

ia Virrey was built with a concrete frame system that gives great flexibility to configure different apartment types while making the most of the facade area — on the main facade, freeing the whole surface between slabs and allowing floor-to-ceiling windows.

From the first sketch to the built project

The first sketch — IA Virrey
The first sketch

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The design in detail
  1. 01 / 05

    The building fully occupies a narrow party-wall lot; the timber panels on the facade resolve both solar protection and privacy toward the street at once.

    The building fully occupies a narrow party-wall lot; the timber panels on the facade resolve both solar protection and privacy toward the street at once.
    Enlarge
  2. 02 / 05

    The panels slide by hand: each resident opens or closes their facade according to the light they seek and the privacy they need.

    The panels slide by hand: each resident opens or closes their facade according to the light they seek and the privacy they need.
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  3. 03 / 05

    A centralized stair and elevator core frees the perimeter and lets four apartment types share the same floor.

    A centralized stair and elevator core frees the perimeter and lets four apartment types share the same floor.
    Enlarge
  4. 04 / 05

    Under construction, the structure rises in concrete porticoes that keep the floor plans open to reconfigure the apartment types.

    Under construction, the structure rises in concrete porticoes that keep the floor plans open to reconfigure the apartment types.
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  5. 05 / 05

    The compact, slender volume fitted to the width of the lot, set between its two neighbors.

    The compact, slender volume fitted to the width of the lot, set between its two neighbors.
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The project in motion

IA Virrey en Bogotá

IA Virrey · Bogotá

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