Dining-Multi Room, Iron Mountain / Polidura + Talhouk Arquitectos

Architects: Polidura + Talhouk Arquitectos
Location: Lampa, Chile
Architects: Antonio Polidura, Pablo Talhouk
Year: 2011
Photographs: Aryeh Kornfeld

Collaborators: Tomas Jacobsen, Sergio Villaroel, Juan Pablo Duarte, Esteban Estay, Hernán Fournies
Landscape: Francisca Pastor, Mario Pérez de Arce
Client: Iron Mountain Chile S.A.
Structures: ALPA / Alfonso Pacheco, Guillermo Donoso
Management: CPI  Ltda.
Construction: Constructora Gresol
Site Area: 10,000 sqm

The task consisted of a 1,000 m2 dining-room for the company staff.

Due to the availability of terrain, the project was placed on a property located across the street from the work areas of the company. As a matter of safety and operability, it wasn´t possible that 400 workers leave the company to public space, to later enter the dining area. This raised the need of a gateway, which allows employees to cross from one terrain to another without control.

Starting with the forced need of a gateway, whose metal structure is capable of saving 30 meters over the street, we decided to integrate it to the project and solve the structure with the repetition of three volumes of equal proportions. The gateway, and its repetition as skylights, creates a column-free interior space that can be multipurpose.

These volumes in addition to solve the structure of the building, resolved the natural light and ventilation required by the 30×30 meters area. Thus, through repetition and the gap between these volumes, establish a system of relations, which transforms the gateway in an element of the whole work.