Modularity and economy meet in Buenos Aires child development centre

Rayito de Sol by the General Directorate of Architecture of Buenos Aires shows how the city is working to enhance its public facilities.

The complexity of the metropolis today makes it difficult to support public initiatives, inhibiting the creation of structures that are necessary for the quality of life of the inhabitants. The administration of the city of Buenos Aires, through the Directorate General for Architecture, is carrying out a series of interventions that aim to make up for this lack.

The Rayito de Sol project – a centre for the development of children from 45 days old to three years of age – is part of this framework and which stems from the need to relocate the old facility. The latter was in fact located within the perimeter of the Olympic village, built for the III Summer Youth Olympic Games held in October 2018.

The new project becomes an opportunity to implement the services of the previous location. The structure is set in an area of the city which is undergoing urban development, in the district of Villa Lugano, not far from the Cecilia Grierson hospital, which interacts with the functions of Rayito de Sol.The building develops on a single floor, and consists of a plate designed starting from a structural grid based on a prefabricated system of steel and concrete slabs of rapid assembly. The construction choices give some flexibility to the interior spaces and facilitate the maintenance of the structure, especially in economic terms.

Externally, the volume is covered with corrugated steel panels, perforated where there is a need to mark an entrance, or a correspondence with the three courtyards cut out within the perimeter. The latter have elongated proportions that define Rayito de Sol’s interior space, acting as a passage between different environments: from the entrance to the canteen, from the multipurpose hall to the classrooms. The internal surfaces of the courtyards, on the other hand, are totally transparent, precisely to facilitate the fluidity of movement of the small inhabitants of this building.

The Rayito de Sol child development centre is therefore a simple and pragmatic project that, in line with the objectives of a public office, aims at a quality of the built space, disinterested in the protagonism of stylistic elements and styles. It is precisely this approach that actually gives these initiatives a precise identity.