Biarritz is a collective housing building for a cooperative of education workers in Buenos Aires province. It was designed and constructed in a collaborative effort that took into account in equal measure the cooperative’s needs, the building’s site, and the building codes and zoning regulations in effect in the county of San Martín—three factors that rarely converged. Three different types of homes were designed—one-, two-, and three-bedroom units, with variations so that no two units were alike: two-bedroom duplex apartments on the highest two floors, or on a single level but with the two bedrooms adjacent or separated, depending on the preferences of the inhabitants; balconies where the exterior space juts into the homes to allow for a future expansion.

The building faces the north with a tiered courtyard onto which the one- and three-bedroom units look out. In the distance are train tracks that connect downtown Buenos Aires to its outskirts—a defining trait of the immediate landscape.

In all instances, the project coordinated, and drew sustenance from, the cooperative’s varied organizational, political, and administrative skills deployed here to produce community-run housing.

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