Bolivar, a condominium in Buenos Aires by HM Arquitectos

The architects Fernando Hitzig and Leonardo Militello from Argentinian firm HM Arquitectos have designed an apartment building in San Telmo, an old district of Buenos Aires. A design challenge that combines space optimisation with a clear, contemporary formal language.


San Telmo is the oldest district of Buenos Aires with narrow streets, colonial architecture and shady squares. Its historical and urban specifics mean the regulations for new builds involve some constraints, including the building height.
These contingencies meant that to craft a new condominium with sixteen units on a site in the middle of an already structured street front, the architects from Hitzig Militello Arquitectos, well known to our readers also for their amazing interior design (Tostado Café Club, Victoria Brown), had to find a solution that would meet the client's brief as well as the city's building code.
The result is a compact volume that makes the most of the space available. The ground floor houses a commercial space and parking lots for six cars, then the studio, two-bedroom and three-bedroom apartments are located across three levels. The four apartments on the top floor have a rooftop terrace, and the other units have balconies.
Estudio HMA skilfully use the material impact and colour of bare concrete, both on the façade and as a contrast with the galvanised steel fixtures and screens which give the building rhythm, lightness and of course privacy behind the large windows and doors on the street front. A contemporary, streamlined solution that also references the existing buildings, helping the new architecture to blend into the urban context.

Christiane Bürklein

Project, documentation management & management HM.Arquitectos _ Fernando Hitzig & Leonardo G. Militello 
Developer: Arunam 
General contractor: Emgon SRL 
Colaborators: Juliana Zorza, Virginia Bottan 
Structural engineer: Carlos Gandini 
Sanitary Consultant: Eje 0 
Consulting engineer electrical Oscar Vasta 
Renders: ZoomZ estudio 
Year: 2014-2016 
Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina
Photography: Federico Kulekdjian