HDC in Lagos
The programme foresees 54 dwellings that comprise all typologies up to 4 bedrooms.
The smallness of the area dictated the rectangular configuration of the lot, which is marked by a considerable slope oriented South-North.
The building consists of 4 units on 3 floors, including pavements and street parking, access to the courtyard and a semi-underground garage.
Taking advantage of the morphology of the land, the building forsees two platforms at the courtyards level interconnected by a staircase on each level.
The differences in level of the courtyard is due to the reduction in building height to Northeast. The suggested scale for the courtyard gives rise to an atractive, sheltered outside area. Circulation occurs intuitively in continuity, creating a good use of the courtyard, which interprets a main urban elevation.
The visual notes produced between the accesses secure amplitude, transparency and fluidity in communication with the surroundings. The galleries also offer sheltered leisure areas.
The architectural image proposed lies in a modular replication of a mesh composed of monochromatic panels. The whole building is regulated through by communication between the proposed fenestrations allowing a more flexible composition of the spans, emphasising the notions of proportion and wholeness.
Creating an open courtyard, contrary to the usual, encourages humanisation and living experiences within it, avoiding closed, restrictive dead-ends.
The proposed solution hugs the boundaries of the land, accomplishing the difficult task of organising such an entangled and asymmetric programme, but maintaining an old cosmopolitism that respects the past and reacts to the challenges of the present.