Archinect - News

MVRDV unveils plans for green and porous residential building in Montevideo

2023-05-09T18:43:00-04:00

The construction permit for MVRDV's 15-story residential building "Ziel" in Montevideo, Uruguay has been approved, marking the Dutch architectural firm's first venture in the country. The building, designed for developer IXOU in collaboration with executive architect Monoblock, is set to transform city living with its unique design centered around light, air, and green spaces.

MVRDV Ziel © MVRDV

Situated a block away from the ocean and adjacent to Villa Biarritz Park in the dense Punta Carretas neighborhood, the design of Ziel utilizes its deep plot and neighboring buildings' blind walls to create an open and permeable structure. The project includes a courtyard and a series of individual homes stacked loosely to ensure each apartment receives adequate sunlight, while extending the park's greenery throughout the structure.

MVRDV Ziel © MVRDV

Envisioned as a stack of country villas within a bustling city, the project includes 40 apartments, each with generous balconies or loggias. The ...

Construction Update: an artist-designed museum takes shape in Uruguay

2021-08-31T08:03:00-04:00

The latest addition to South America’s burgeoning contemporary art scene is almost set for its debut after a two-year-long construction process that will give the continent what is likely to be its first artist-designed museum in the form of the new Museo Arte Contemporaneo Atchugarry (MACA) located on the southern edge of Uruguay’s Atlantic coast.

The museum is a product of a collaboration between Canada-based Uruguayan architect Carlos Ott and renowned sculptor Pablo Atchugarry.

Image courtesy Foundacion Atchugerry.

Atchugarry is considered one of the leaders of Uruguay's contemporary arts movement and has already established a foothold in his native country with a 15-year-old foundation (Foundacion Pablo Atchugerry) that currently hosts an amphitheatre and several gallery spaces on its spacious Punta del Este campus.

Image courtesy Foundacion Atchugerry.

Marked by facing curvilinear concrete and timber volumes, the new museum rises from the landscape surrounded by a 99-acre sculpt...

Dispatch from the Venice Biennale: Uruguay's underground, Germany's construction site, Britain's housekeeping and more from the national pavilions

2016-05-27T13:40:00-04:00

May 26, 2016

Aravena’s Biennale for architecture to give a damn might imply a specific kind of project, but, after one day on the ground, it is clear that there is no one way for it to respond. For one thing, there is a truly incomprehensible quantity of material to cover. The volume alone speaks to the complex of energy and passion coming worldwide from the discipline. After an incomplete first pass around the Giardini and a tactical visit to the Arsenale, Venice’s two main Biennale sites, I am struck by the inconsistency and individuality across and within these many contributions. Noteworthy trends may, at some point, emerge from the crowd, but, for now, I can list a few, non-representative soundbites only:

The US Pavilion, “The Architectural Imagination,” gives us architecture as we have come to expect it. Through twelve proposals for four Detroit sites, it posits the speculative as the instrument of societal uplift, offering up wild thinking as the means of igniting change. It do...

Take a look at Rafael Viñoly's new circular bridge in Uruguay

2016-01-21T13:13:00-05:00

Why build a straightforward bridge for an unremarkable sum when the same bridge could be built as a circle for vast amounts of money? A new bridge spanning (or circumnavigating) Laguna Garzón, a coastal lagoon in southeastern Uruguay, poses just that question. [...] At a glance, it’s the sort of ridiculousness that you might expect of a bridge in London. In fact, there’s a perfectly good functional explanation for it.

"The concept of the Puente Laguna Garzón was to transform a traditional vehicular crossing into an event that reduces the speed of the cars, to provide an opportunity to enjoy panoramic views of an amazing landscape and at the same time create a pedestrian place in the center," the architect explained the unusual bridge concept.

Other Viñoly-related news stories on Archinect: