In the middle of an old factory dedicated to construction materials, it was requested the renovation of a warehouse and a series of attached sheds for a new industrialized building solutions company called E2E. The proposal consisted on recycling the old warehouse and demolishing the other minor sheds in order to increase the surface of green areas and locate the new offices towards one edge of the garden, facing a group of huge existing trees.
Through a two-story regular compact volume, mostly closed to its most direct industrial environment, the building aims to integrate nature into work spaces, opening completely one of its facades towards the shaded garden.
A central cross circulation through the first floor of the building, connects the exterior circulations of the industrial complex with the access to the company's production warehouse. The staircase is incorporated along this circulation, dividing the floor plan and organizing most of the interior spaces according to their needs of light and orientation.
On the first floor and facing the garden, are located a training room with flexible furniture for 20 people and an external meeting room for 10 people. In the opposite direction and facing the arrival area, is located the entrance hall with an integrated reception desk. Next to it and towards the production warehouse, are the external services and a small kitchenette. On the second floor and facing the garden at the same height level of the canopy, are the main open work space areas separated by the glass railing staircase in the middle. Towards the production warehouse, the internal services, a small meeting room and the general manager office, both integrated with the main workspace through glass walls.
From a regular square 12 x 12 mt plan and using a 1.2 x 1.5 mt modular grid that matches rigorously the minimum internal division walls, it is developed a mass timber structure, based on coffered beams and CLT (cross laminated timber) panel, resting over a series of perimeter columns. This system reduces the section of the beams and concentrates the supports and bracing walls mostly on the edge, allowing wider and more flexible spaces in the interior.
The integral wooden solution is left exposed in the interior, while the exterior combines a glass curtain wall that uses the timber columns as mullions and a ventilated facade with fiber cement plates and lattices of the same material used in front of the service area. Thus, the building exhibits the main materials used in the company production, such as wood structures and fiber cement coatings.
Santiago del Cile
Chile
E2E
04/2019
315 sq. m
Maurizio Angelini, Benjamín Oportot
Reto Züger, Cristián Alviña, Daniela González
Pablo Vidal
Ing. Natale Albertani
Arauco®, Etex®
Roland Halbe
Curriculum
57STUDIO is an architecture firm founded in 2002 in Santiago, Chile. The partners Maurizio Angelini Amadori (1977) and Benjamín Oportot Frigerio (1977) are both architects graduated in 2001 at the Universidad de Chile.
Their work has been published, exhibited and awarded in different countries. In 2004 they won the XIV Bienal de Arquitectura de Chile and were part of the chilean exhibition for the IX Biennale di Venezia. In 2016 they were awarded at the Bienal Iberoamericana de Arquitectura XBIAU and recieved the First Price of Casa FOA Chile.
Their work intends to exploit the relation between the building and its context, throughout a technical and constructive process that explores the space, the form and its materiality.
