Office Inside a Block

To emphasize this continuous condition of space, we choose to extend the flooring, ceiling, and exterior cladding throughout the intervention. A polished, raised, and heated concrete floor crosses both interior and exterior spaces; the ceiling is resolved with an acoustic panel of wooden slats inserted between the original concrete structure, which gains new expressiveness when framed by it; finally, when the volumes of the new workspace go outside to meet the original office at its various levels, they are clad in galvanized steel sheets and are arranged without supports in the patios, highlighting their condition as autonomous artifacts inserted in the existing voids. The projected furniture pieces, the areas defined by the acoustic ceiling, and the cross-ventilation provided by the patios delineate the workplaces without divisions, refining the openness of the floor.

The intervention seeks to enhance the concepts of transparency, sequence, and gradient typical of the traditional articulations of the extensive and jumbled centers of historical cities in the south, without losing sight of the desire to stitch the spaces available for expansion, fragmented and independent at first, and continuous and articulated after the project’s execution. The space in the form of air and light penetrates the built mass, like a continuous matter that belongs to the entire city and is tamed within the block.