Description

In 2002, José Cruz Ovalle had already designed the undergraduate building for the Universidad Adolfo Ibañez, a project for which he received the First Prize at the Bienal Iberoamericana de Arquitectura y Urbanismo (Lima, Peru, 2004). The postgraduate educational facility, comprising 12,000 square metres, was to be located on a site nearby.

When speaking about his 2007 project, Cruz indicated that there were excesses in his design for the undergraduate building that he did not want to repeat in the centre for postgraduate studies. Though there are some similarities between the two schemes, the postgraduate building shows a greater level of accomplishment. The morphology is more complex and the building is characterised by a dynamic and extraordinarily diverse spatiality.

The site consisted of a steep and narrow ridge extending out of the cordillera towards the city. Although it is not the most appropriate location from an economic and, even, technical point of view (because of the cost and difficulty of building on a rugged and steep terrain), Cruz placed the building on top of the ridge. Two reasons motivated this decision: first, it guarantees views of the city in front and the Andes at the back, second, that way the building is distanced 250 metres from the main road. This distance constitutes a transition into the building, a gradual detachment from the city (first by car, then on foot) and a reduction of speed, so that arrival into the place of study happens at the slower pace of the pedestrian.

The Postgraduate complex consists of an arrangement of intertwined volumes that create a series of outdoor public spaces (patios) on different levels at the north-east where they receive the morning sunlight. A few interruptions in the continuity of the weaving building at ground level permit controlled views of the city from the patios. However, other volumes float above these intermittent interruptions creating covered plazas, protected from the sunlight, where students can gather in the afternoon. The undulations of the buildings are not arbitrary: they make room for different natural occurrences: a tree here, a rock there or a needed transparency over there.

Those particularities of the site – which are not common to any other site – determine the form of the building, its position on the site and the undulations of the volumes. The location of windows, ramps, stairwells and all major components were selected based on similar considerations and careful analysis.

Similarly, the interior spatiality is also informed by the steep topography which prevented a traditional distribution of floors (first, second, third, etc.). Instead, level changes are often irregular, half-level, one-third of a level or, only, 1 metre. Consequently, the challenge inside the building was to connect these continually varying levels while creating an unambiguous, and functional, circulation system. To achieve this, most circulations are detached from the volumes that contain spaces such as classrooms, offices, toilets, etc. As a result, circulations turn into a network of ramps and bridges that traverse the space at various heights, producing a truly extraordinary spatiality. The effect of such an aerial network of ramps and bridges is exacerbated by the lighting arrangement. Natural sunlight enters generously through the roof, yet this light is broken, as it were, by the ramps which cast a multitude of shadows on the interior walls.

The plasticity of the building is such that it does not need a juxtaposition of materials to create a suitable ambience. All walls are painted white, both in- and outside the building. White makes the building stand out against the colours of the cordillera which change according to the season – or it can make it disappear when it snows. More importantly, white increases the legibility of the curving volumes and alleviates the sense of weight caused by their horizontality. In the interior, free-standing walls have skirting around them while the walls of classrooms and other main spaces have a dado (i.e. the lower part of the wall has a different decor than the upper part). These two elements serve to highlight the curvature of the walls in the interior, where there is less light. Exterior floors are made of stone, a heavier and resistant material which also works as a transition between the natural and the artificial. The interior floor is presented as a continuous surface throughout. Most ceilings are painted white, although the areas that need extra servicing (reading rooms, auditoria, etc.) use suspended wooden ceilings to conceal the appliances.

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Originally published in: Felipe Hernández, Beyond Modernist Masters. Contemporary Architecture in Latin America, Birkhäuser, 2009.