SIOM Building

SIOM Building
© Cristóbal Palma

SIOM BUILDING

SML Arquitectos

ARCHITECTS
SML Arquitectos

AREA
256224 ft²

YEAR
2020

LOCATION
Quilicura, Chile

MANUFACTURERS
Hunter Douglas

PHOTOGRAPHS
Cristóbal Palma

STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING
Vladimir Urzua

LEAD ARCHITECTS
Franco Somigli, Sebastián Mundi, Nicolás Gallo

TECHNICAL INSPECTION
Victor Villarroel

CATEGORY
Office Buildings

MANUFACTURERS
Hunter Douglas

Text description provided by architect.

The project consisted of designing a factory to manufacture products for the mining industry with production bays and a corporate building following three main guidelines.

SIOM Building
© Cristóbal Palma
SIOM Building
© Cristóbal Palma

1. The design should allow for modifications and expansions.

2. The chosen construction system should be a rapid and efficient construction system.

3. The project should reflect the company’s standards and principles and evoke the mining sector in the choice of materials given that this is a corporate building.

SIOM Building
© Cristóbal Palma
SIOM Building
© Cristóbal Palma

The answer to these three guidelines was a complex that consists of three large production bays behind a main four-story building conceived of as a regular grid using a structure of prefabricated concrete columns and beams.

The grid serves as the base of the various spaces, which are laid out within this structural system and organized, though with a certain level of tension, through this Cartesian order.

SIOM Building
© Cristóbal Palma
SIOM Building
© Cristóbal Palma

In order to respect the geometric plasticity of the prefabricated system, rather than covering it, we left the main structural principles of the system exposed along with the columns, beams, scaffolding, and rigid concrete knots.

The intermediate spaces produced between the various parts of the layout and the structure give rise to multiple spaces. Some of these are exterior terraces and others are double- and triple-height open spaces.

These same interstices allow for the possibility of future expansion, which will always be regulated within the concrete grid, maintaining the project’s original logic.

Glass, wood, Corten steel, and copper are the main materials used, and they contrast with the nudity of the concrete structure, offering transparent and cozy spaces for those who work here and evoking the raw materials used in the mining sector. The building thus tells the company’s story in a certain sense.

SIOM Building
© Cristóbal Palma


SIOM Building
Plan - Site
SIOM Building
Plan - 1st floor 1:1000
SIOM Building
Plan - 1st floor 1:250
SIOM Building
Plan - 2nd floor 1:250
SIOM Building
Plan - 3rd floor 1:250
SIOM Building
Plan - 4th floor and Roof 1:250


SIOM Building
West elevation
SIOM Building
East elevation
SIOM Building
South elevation
SIOM Building
South elevation


SIOM Building
Sección Longitudinal 01
SIOM Building
Sección Longitudinal 02
SIOM Building
Sección Transversal