Project material
- 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
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
Visual assets are published optimized for the web. Originals remain outside the public build to keep the site lightweight and cacheable.
The site. A narrow party-wall site in El Virrey, squeezed between its neighbors: quality homes on a 12 m frontage without giving up light. Slender. A compact, slender eight-storey volume that steps back from the street behind its front garden and leaves air at the back of the site. The core. Stairs, lift and services gather at the center and free the perimeter: homes from 48 to 215 m² with natural light and ventilation. Open plans. A concrete frame: open, reconfigurable plans and a facade that opens between slabs with floor-to-ceiling glazing. The timber facade. A modular timber screen runs over the glass, and each resident slides it by hand to tune sun and privacy. The terrace. A shared roof terrace crowns the building and gives residents the open sky that the narrow site seemed to deny.
- 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.
Enlarge - 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.
Enlarge - 03 / 05
A centralized stair and elevator core frees the perimeter and lets four apartment types share the same floor.
Enlarge - 04 / 05
Under construction, the structure rises in concrete porticoes that keep the floor plans open to reconfigure the apartment types.
Enlarge - 05 / 05
The compact, slender volume fitted to the width of the lot, set between its two neighbors.
Enlarge
