Atelier Raghsa | Uruguay

Atelier is a residential complex composed of a 26-story tower set on a platform that integrates support areas, amenities, and parking. The project was born in response to an invitation-only competition to design a residential tower on a second-line plot facing Playa Brava in Punta del Este, on a strategic parcel near the intersection of Avenida Roosevelt and the Rambla. Complementing the brand’s first-line oceanfront developments, this project addresses a broader audience through a differentiated offering while maintaining the same high-end quality standards.

The site has specific geometric characteristics, with interruptions and changes in elevation that influence the layout of parking areas, common spaces, and amenities. The design concentrates the tower’s vertical mass near the center of mass of the lot, while an adjacent horizontal volume houses the common areas, amenities, and a portion of the parking garage. This volume also creates a green garden toward Roosevelt Avenue, functioning as the building’s access space and public facade. This strategy made it possible to free up the perimeter areas of the site, maximize views toward the Rambla and the beach, and create a more pleasant urban microclimate, with recreational zones and green, landscaped spaces.

The site is organized through a dual vehicular access from Guanabara Street. The first leads to the front garden along Avenida Roosevelt—which serves as the main entrance and drop-off—while the second provides direct access to the parking areas—located on the ground floor and basement—from the rear of the lot, optimizing internal circulation and avoiding interference between traffic flows.

At ground level, a spacious double-height entrance lobby welcomes visitors, matching the scale of the building and articulating the relationship between the platform—where the common areas and amenities are located—, and the residential levels of the tower. The latter offers a range of typological variants: one-bedroom, one-and-a-half-bedroom (Flex), and two-bedroom apartments, arranged into ten units per floor, responding to the different user profiles and ways of living.

The incorporation of the “Flex” product allows for the reorganization of internal spaces into different combinations of bedrooms, bathrooms, and living areas, adapting to variations in family needs and thus providing greater versatility to the proposal. This flexible approach responds both to market trends and to the intention of creating a product capable of adjusting to changes in demand over time. Meanwhile, the larger units are located at the corners to take advantage of panoramic views and to arrange spaces in a way that generates stepped volumes, resulting in a variability of form that constitutes the distinguishing feature of the selected proposal and the underlying spirit guiding its evolution through to the final version.

The configuration of the circulations ensures efficiency and comfort. The main core includes four public-use elevators, along with a service core that allows circulation of maintenance and service staff independently from the main accesses. These functional decisions respond to the need to optimize waiting times and ensure smooth building operation, considering the large number of units and the high occupancy density.

The relationship between the habitable area and the area of amenities was carefully studied, resulting in a higher-than-usual proportion of amenities for the number of apartments. The design seeks a balance between unit floor area and the surface allocated to common spaces, which include a gym, outdoor and indoor swimming pools, sauna, sports court, common-use lounges, children’s area, barbecue areas, and landscaped green spaces.

The proposal integrates the aesthetic expression of the facades and the building’s volume with internal functionality, creating bright, well-ventilated, and visually appealing spaces. Adjustments made during the design process make it possible to reconcile the tower’s geometry with regulatory requirements, achieve structural efficiency, and enhance the future residential experience, resulting in a diversified final product that embodies the premium quality of Le Parc.