ccdh office, by oscar fuentes

The interest shown by Ignacio Montaldo for the anonymous constructions that populate both our suburbs as our countryside (and especially the care for the particular obstacles of the masonry that some masons incorporate as an expression of the walls they construct) is evident in this small office building. The rigor with which different types of interlocking in the walls intersect, give the building its character. From the permeable definition of the fence, to the artificial ordering that defines the closure of the offices -artificial due to absence of lock: the bricks are placed in parallel requiring obviously a special assembly of the junta- the whole building finds its expression by the different modes Of working the brick. In fact, this imposes itself on its architectural structure, which is defined by the code restrictions and the simplicity of the program: free office plants for rent, without major demands for symbolic definition.
At all times the presence of the brick is imposed and to achieve this it collaborates the special fruition with which it was worked. The care in its selection, besides the attention in the different types of lock and board, is the first thing that appears when facing this small building. It is special care in the work of the brick without falling into ornament: at all times we are faced with rigorous ways of working the masonry, always with the same material, which confers unity in diversity.
The way of working on the main body also confers the unit of measurement: the pieces when not locked, give the exact measurement of each of the closing cloths, without needing any adjustment piece. Both in the enclosure and in the sanitary and ladder closures, the screening not only gives the façade texture but also permeability towards the exterior, without losing mass in the whole. The masonry type needs at any point not only special details of locking and reinforcement (as in the one referring to the main body) but also sometimes needs complementary elements: the fence does not reach the necessary inertia despite its zig-zag shape and (So as not to interfere with the continuity of the brick in the front) it finds in a later metallic tutors the necessary stability. All these artifices try not to remove the prominence that the brick has in the facade and that strangely are only in the interior in the stairs.
But just as artifices are used to give prominence, the violence of the brick cut is minimized: in the corners of the fence are left uncut pieces, the mode of placement of the main body eludes it and the hatches of the ladder They do not need it. It even avoids the cut in the sidewalk tiles and to achieve it was chosen to avoid encountering the zigzagging fence.
Ignacio Montaldo is not the first to show interest and respect in the anonymous constructions that surround us, hopefully not the last one.

1.- https://www.moarqs.com/portfolio/without-architects/