The Innovation Center UC – Anacleto Angelini / Alejandro Aravena by ELEMENTAL is located at the Universidad Católica de Chile, San Joaquin Campus. The center was create for companies, to contribute to the process of transferring know-how, identifying business opportunities and adding value to existing resources, to improve the country’s competitiveness and development.
To achieve those goals, ELEMENTAL architects proposed to “design a building in which at least 4 forms of work could be verified: a matrix of formal and informal work crossed by individual and collective ways of encountering people“, as they stated.
Since they believe that “face to face contact is unbeatable when one wants to create knowledge”, they multiplied throughout the building the meeting areas: from the elevator’s lobby with a bench where to sit, to a transparent atrium, to elevated squares throughout the entire height of the building.
“The reversal of the typical office space floor plan (replacing the opaque core with transparent curtain wall glass perimeter by an open core with the mass strategically opened in the perimeter) responded not only to functional reasons but to the environmental performance and character of the building as well.”
To avoid heat gains inside the building, because of the climatic condition of Chile, they placed the mass of the building on the perimeter, and had recessed glasses to prevent direct sun radiation and allowed for cross ventilation.
To avoid functional and stylistic obsolescence, they searched for a design that could stand the test of time. From a functional point of view, they designed the building as if it was an “infrastructure more than architecture”. From a stylistic point of view, they thought of “using a rather strict geometry and strong monolithic materiality as a way to replace trendiness by timelessness.”
Image 4 courtesy of Nina Vidic – ELEMENTAL
Image 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 courtesy of Nico Saieh
Discover: www.elementalchile.cl
