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RECODE31

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MASTER’S THESIS
TEAM: Veronica ZulianRecode31 is a thesis project developed within Villa 31, in the heart of Buenos Aires. The settlement has emerged through incremental self-construction, producing a dense and irregular urban fabric defined by predominantly pedestrian streets, scarce ground-level open spaces, and a persistent lack of public services. Despite these critical conditions, Villa 31 operates as a highly active urban environment, where proximity, mixed uses, and strong community networks sustain an intense everyday urban life.

Rather than treating informality as a condition to be replaced, Recode31 approaches it as a spatial and social resource. The project introduces a generative principle aimed at improving habitability, accessibility, and spatial quality while respecting the identity and incremental logic of the existing fabric. The intervention works across multiple scales: it reduces the physical and symbolic isolation of the settlement at the urban level, increases permeability within the neighborhood through transversal openings, and integrates services and housing within existing voids, avoiding new land consumption.

At the core of the proposal is the transformation of density from a constraint into a design driver. Recode31 develops a system of additive architectural actions—support, hooking, and grafting—through which new volumes directly engage with existing buildings. These operations expand domestic space, mitigate overcrowding, and generate intermediate areas such as terraces, thresholds, and shared platforms. Where direct support is not possible, lightweight structural grids enable vertical growth while ensuring structural efficiency and reversibility.

In parallel, the project defines public space through a modular framework and an abacus of elementary architectural components—columns, frames, porticoes, planes, and trees—combined with a flexible truss system. This infrastructure supports greenery, shading, lighting, sport, play, and temporary economic activities, forming a replicable and adaptable system responsive to local needs.

Grounded in fieldwork and direct engagement with residents, Recode31 proposes an alternative approach to informal settlements: one that neither freezes existing conditions nor imposes external models, but instead recodes informalityinto a structured, inclusive, and progressive urban system. Villa 31 is envisioned not as an anomaly, but as a laboratory for rethinking density, proximity, and collective life in contemporary cities.
Site Location: Buenos Aires
 Urban Reading

Urban Strategy

Typological Elements

Masterplan

Axonometric

Micro-scale Strategy
Support | Addition

Hooking – Interference

Grafting – Intrusion