Project material
- Category
- Multifamily Housing
- Typology
- Non-subsidized housing
- Year
- 2015
- Area
- 28.350 m²
- Program
- 260 apartments
- Location
- Cajicá, Cundinamarca
Flexible housing with bioclimatic and sustainability criteria
Terrasabana sits in Cajicá, Cundinamarca, on Diagonal 3 Sur — the road neighbors know as «la bajada al molino» — a short walk from the La Hacienda club. The complex embraces the savanna's urban-rural character: low-rise, light-brick buildings of five residential floors plus a loft level, surrounded by gardens, lawns and trees that slip in between the parking rows.
Flexibility organizes the architecture: one-, two- and three-bedroom apartments and penthouses, with areas ranging from 52 to 107 m², behind facades that alternate brick, planter-lined balconies and terraces. The amenities gather in a two-story glazed club house — gym, aerobics room, a spa-style wet area — and on the rooftop BBQ terraces, with timber pergolas and views toward the club.
The bioclimatic design is concrete, not decorative, and it is measured. Fresh air enters through the main façade and leaves, already warm, through the interior courtyards, where the difference in pressure and temperature draws it out; in the thermal simulation of a typical week, with outdoor temperatures between 6 and 21 °C, the standard apartment stayed between 17.8 and 22.7 °C. Greywater from the showers goes through a treatment plant and returns to the toilets; rainwater from roofs and platforms is stored to irrigate and clean the common areas, and waste separation feeds the composting of community gardens.
The design went through the EDGE assessment: in 2020, with CAMACOL as certifier, the three apartment types received the certificate at the preliminary stage, with projected savings of 26 to 29% in energy, about 55% in water and 54% in the embodied energy of materials compared with a reference home.
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The project's environmental analysis incorporated bioclimatic, comfort and sustainability strategies: natural lighting, cross ventilation to renew indoor air, greywater reuse, and waste management that turns organic waste into compost for the community gardens.
Five schemes, one model and a bioclimatic study.
The commission began with five basic schemes drawn between September and November 2015, and within 33 weeks the urban development license had been filed and the preliminary design completed. The permit submission was presented to the planning office with a physical model and a bioclimatic study — sustainability sat at the table from the paperwork stage, not as an afterthought — and the project kept sharpening through five versions, up to the construction drawings for towers and apartments and, finally, the complete club house package delivered as drawings, details and a Revit model.
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Light, measured
Daylighting analysis of the apartment at 3:00 p.m., on a scale from 0 to 1,000 lux.
Daylight was studied on the apartment plan, not assumed. The 3:00 p.m. analysis shows light entering strongly through the terraces and large windows and spreading towards the living-dining room and the bedrooms, which are the spaces the studio chose to prioritise: the ones in constant use.
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Water that comes back
Greywater from the showers goes through a treatment plant and returns to the toilets.
The showers supply the toilets. Greywater runs down its own pipes to a treatment plant beside the building, where it is processed and made ready to go back up to the toilets: the water from about half of the showers is enough for every toilet. With that, and with the rainwater collected on roofs and platforms for irrigation and cleaning, the EDGE assessment projects water savings of about 55%.
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A courtyard that breathes
Natural ventilation: fresh air enters through the façades and warm air is drawn out through the interior courtyard.
Fresh air enters through the main façade, moves through the apartment and, as it warms with use, leaves through the openings onto the interior courtyard. There the difference in pressure and temperature with the outside draws it upwards and out of the building. In the simulated typical week, with outdoor temperatures between 6 and 21 °C, the apartment stayed between 17.8 and 22.7 °C.
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