UC Architecture School Building

UC Architecture School Building

UC Architecture School Buildin

Gonzalo Claro

ARCHITECT
Gonzalo Claro

LANDSCAPE DESIGN
P. Courard

ASSISTANTS ARCHITECTS
P. Levine (Asoc. Arch.), R. Behrens, S. Kutz

ENGINEERING
Enlaces Ingenieros Consultores

PHOTOS
Erieta Attali - Philippe Blanc

PHOTOS
Erieta Attali (8), Philippe Blanc (6)

AREA
1000 Sqft - 3000 Sqft

CONSTRUCTED AREA
1.500sq

YEAR
2016

LOCATION
Santiago, Chile

TYPE
Educational › Auditorium University

UC Architecture School Building

The new building of the Architecture School of Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile is emplaced in the south corner of Lo Contador campus, aside from the large patrimonial house. It is the result of a public contest.

The building consists of a double height volume of laminated wood which lies lightly over a concrete plinth. The wood structure of columns and beams is arranged in a modulated system, which facilitates the stages of preassembling, installation and later transportation of the parts.

The use of wood in the construction of the building consists of avoiding cuts and making an efficient use and taking advantage of its established dimensions.

UC Architecture School Building
UC Architecture School Building
UC Architecture School Building

The timber skeleton remains exposed in order to make visible the way that the structure works, and the distribution of loads along the vertical and horizontal development of the building.

This volume was built to contain the offices for the professors, this functional programme was left in the main interior, releasing these way the first floor and the ceiling to be destined to display the programs that increase the university life in the building, leaving this way a ground-level covered patio, and an auditorium in the superior terrace which is at the same time a viewpoint to the surrounding treetops of the neighborhood.

UC Architecture School Building
UC Architecture School Building

This construction is structured in wood, which helps in achieving the goal of sustainability from the very beginning of the project since it is a renewable resource and a material with a very low carbon footprint.

It was mounted as a dry work technique that decreased the construction time along with the impact provoked in the surrounding neighborhood and its inhabitants.

Passive resources used in this building, such as a natural cross ventilation, aimed to reduce the mechanized air conditioning and making this construction energetically efficient.

UC Architecture School Building
UC Architecture School Building

Although its program is mainly for private use, it is a building with a strong public vocation, it opens its front to the city and turns its internal academic activity towards the street generating a new relation of unprecedented permeability of the campus with the neighborhood in which it is located and its community.


UC Architecture School Building
UC Architecture School Building
UC Architecture School Building
UC Architecture School Building


UC Architecture School Building
UC Architecture School Building
UC Architecture School Building
UC Architecture School Building