Located in the city of Viña del Mar, Chile, the Conjunto Habitacional 7 Hermanas (7 Sisters Housing Complex) stands out among the urban landscape of Viña del Mar for its architectural qualities, colors, materials, and magnitude. When you look up, you can see between the leafy ravine that overlooks the Quinta Vergara urban park, the group of buildings located in the Forestal sector, which take over the slope and the plateau of the hill, crowning itself as one of the most important works of modern architecture in the region of Valparaíso.
The complex is the result of an initiative by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development to solve the housing crisis of 1970, in which it was proposed to build housing complexes in rural areas of the city's hills. In Viña del Mar, under this resolution, the Chorrillos, Forestal Alto, and Las Colinas hills were intervened. Thus, in 1974, the project designed by architects Hugo Boetsch and Jorge Elton was consolidated and received its final acceptance in 1978. This housing complex was one of the last projects of the Caja de Empleados Particulares (EMPART), built by the "Monte Grande" low-cost housing construction company.
Planned to accommodate 7,500 inhabitants, this project had 3 stages. The first stage was to consolidate the urbanisation and build 324 dwellings on the hillside. The second stage considered the construction of 704 dwellings on the plateau, in addition to proposing a diverse range of facilities including commercial, social, educational, health and office areas. The third stage did not materialise, but was intended to build 472 homes and recreational areas, as well as to create a direct connection road between the city centre and the hill, and a connecting road to the route to Santiago. Finally, the work was completed with the execution of the first two stages with a total of 30 buildings, 720 dwellings and a surface area of 37,418 m².
The design of both the first and second stages is notable for the walkways between buildings that weave together the pedestrian circulation of the complex. The first stage has 23 buildings, consisting of twenty 7-storey towers with 4 duplex flats per level, and 3 sets of 2-storey semi-detached dwellings arranged around the slope, which are unified by a corridor that houses the retail and services programs. The operation of staggering to adapt to the topography, together with the decision to generate space between the volumes allowed for greater visual control of the common space, access to natural light and ventilation, as well as generating a series of spaces for recreational activities at ground level. A network of walkways is installed above these spaces to form the horizontal circulation and isolated staircases between buildings to form the vertical circulation.
Stage two consists of seven 13-storey buildings with four flats per level, plus parking areas and gardens. The towers were adapted to the height of the terrain, with some on the plateau and others a few levels below. This meant that each building had its own staircase for vertical circulation, but again they are connected by horizontal circulation walkways that converge in a common lift. It should be noted that if stage 3 had been consolidated, there would be an equipment platform and recreational areas connecting the two buildings between stages 1 and 2. This is currently used as a dirt court by the inhabitants of the neighborhood.
7 Sisters is undoubtedly a great example of architecture in Chile, the spatial operations that were applied to the site made it possible to obtain a high-rise building that does not depend on mechanical circulation systems. On the other hand, Carolina Carrasco's study of the work highlights the contrast between the verticality of the towers and the horizontality of the walkways, where a perfectly balanced principle of opposition is applied, separating the pedestrian from the ground and establishing a new geometry for circulation that combines the existing, the slope, the planned and the horizontal.
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Architects: Hugo Boetsch, Jorge Elton
- Area: 37418 m²
