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A 190-metre sculpture that challenges the wind
🇦🇷 Argentina /Energy & Infrastructure

A 190-metre sculpture that challenges the wind

From Clarín · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

In-depth Named sources Context piece
  • Harbour Tower, a 190-metre residential building in Buenos Aires’s Puerto Madero, has 53 floors, three basement levels and varying floor plans and terraces.
  • Architect Carlos Ott designed the tower as a response to wind forces, with an irregular façade, a central core and perimeter columns.
  • The building uses H50 reinforced concrete and rests on 49 deep foundation elements extending 37 metres below sidewalk level.

Harbour Tower rises more than 190 metres above Puerto Madero’s Dock 1, but its defining feature is not simply its height. Its faceted outline changes from floor to floor, giving the building the appearance of a sculpture rather than a repeated residential tower.

GNV Group commissioned the project as part of the Distrito Madero Harbour masterplan. Uruguayan architect Carlos Ott conceived the design, while Urgell-Penedo-Urgell developed it for construction and architect Julieta Steinmann managed the project. The tower has 53 floors, a ground floor and three basement levels.

Ott said the design sought to avoid a uniform prism. He described the building as a “living sculpture” that does not fight the wind but moves with it. The breaks, shifts and terraces respond to air pressure while also varying the apartments’ layouts and improving views and natural light.

We did not want to build a boring prism that simply repeated the same floor plan from the base to the top.

— Carlos OttThe architect described the design principle behind Harbour Tower.

The technical solution includes a central core for vertical circulation, perimeter columns and a 20-centimetre slab. The slab’s outer edge changes around the building as it rises, creating the irregular façade. Structural engineer Alberto Fainstein said the tower uses H50 reinforced concrete and stands on 49 foundation elements measuring 0.80 by 2.70 metres, reaching 37 metres below sidewalk level.

The project also includes a duplex penthouse recently listed for $21 million. Its terraces and upper-level position form part of the design’s effort to offer broad views across the water, docks and surrounding city.

The tower was conceived as a living sculpture: the building does not compete with the wind, it dances with it.

— Carlos OttOtt explained how the tower’s geometry responds to wind.
About this summary

Originally published by Clarín in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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