The “Ciudad de la Ciencia” project is located in the Palermo neighborhood of Buenos Aires—along the urban corridor of the former San Martín railway yards and the historic Arroyo Maldonado basin—proposing the integration of two plots to form a large civic plaza that connects with the adjacent park. This intervention concentrates public and massive uses in a large main building on block 97c, while designating a smaller volume at the corner of Nicaragua Street for restricted-access programs, such as the kindergarten and Innovation Ecosystems.

Architecturally, the complex rests on a stone platform that, up to a height of 7 meters, articulates plazas, halls, and auditoriums in a continuous journey. Above this base level, a large central void and a double-helix staircase organize an ascending route toward the three upper floors, which house highly flexible permanent exhibition halls that can be merged into a single 50 by 50-meter space. The circuit culminates in a publicly accessible terrace-viewpoint, crowned by a semi-covered organic structure called “the amoeba,” which provides ample shaded areas while functioning as a large surface of solar collectors.

From a symbolic and environmental perspective, the project is conceived as “The Sovereign Palace,” seeking to elevate the status of science, education, and research to place public knowledge on an equal footing with the other powers of the Republic. This conceptual framework is metaphorically expressed through the evolutionary tension between “the cave” of nature’s unresolved questions and “the palace” illuminated by rationality and progress.

In terms of sustainability, the design incorporates a solar and wind forest in the interior of the block, which powers the plaza’s lighting while paying homage to the national scope of scientific policies through installations connected to water, air, and minerals. Furthermore, the entire main building is enclosed within a double skin of galvanized steel and glass designed to be fabricated by local industry. This perimeter, together with the structural mesh of the central void, generates a stack effect that enables natural exhaust of hot air, contributing significantly to reducing energy consumption for the building’s climate control.