FPA Franzina + Partners Architettura

CT is a long residential complex developed in Cape Town, South Africa, all along the ocean side with a maximum four floors high. The concept combines contrasting ideas of regular and random elements: pillars and cores of each building form the regular structural system and in the meantime horizontal concrete slabs runs all along the complex maintaining the same width but with different lengths. Slabs fold connecting each other vertically, like a continuous ribbon, and those vertical parts are divided in horizontal staves. Residential units are circumscribed by glass boxes that maximize natural lighting contribution and whose different sizes define multiple apartments’ solutions. Outdoor private space is marked by vertical wooden brise soleils, that also protect from sun lighting like a building second skin and guarantee privacy to residential units. Glass boxes are designed to be as mutable as possible: doors slide on their own, making the interior space permeable and putting it in communication with the outside. This idea of architecture overtakes the traditional distinction of spaces defined by dichotomous contrasts such as open vs. closed, covered vs. uncovered, internal vs. external. “Osmotic" architecture looks for permeable and fluid spaces, characterized by a continuous inter-relationship between the built and the surrounding environment. In this context, nature contributes to the design as proper building element, creating private and public outdoor courtyards fitted in the building volume.