101 Tibás

Located in Llorente de Tibás, within an established residential fabric well-connected to San José, Tibás, La Uruca, and Colima, 101 Tibás is a ten-story residential building with two underground parking levels and a rooftop dedicated entirely to shared amenities. The project responds to a dense urban lot with a clear strategy: organize every apartment at a corner of the building, granting each unit dual orientation, cross-ventilation, and natural light from at least two façades — a fundamental quality often lost in vertical living.

The volume is broken down into four interlocking masses to soften the building’s scale and give it a distinctive identity on the street. Two charcoal volumes, one story taller than their counterparts, are paired with two lower white volumes, producing a balanced asymmetry crowned by a single-pitched roof that ties the composition into a single gesture. The dialogue between dark and light, tall and lower, gives the building a sculptural quality that reads clearly from a distance while anchoring it firmly to its corner.

The façade language reinforces the volumetric logic. The charcoal masses are punctuated by cantilevered balconies with solid balustrades, alternating across the elevation to create a syncopated rhythm of light, shadow, and inhabited space, while horizontal full-width openings reinforce their planar character. The white volumes, by contrast, adopt a measured grid of square windows, quieter and more restrained, allowing the charcoal volumes to take the lead. Together, the four pieces compose a building that is at once urban, residential, and unmistakably contemporary.