Office: Undurraga Devés Arquitectos | ArchDaily

Chile Pavilion at Expo Milan 2015 / Undurraga Devés Arquitectos

Daniel Tapia — Tue, 10 Apr 2018 10:01:00 +0000

Context Description
We designed the Pavilion to represent Chile in Expo 2015 Milan. Always with the knowledge that the world fair will only last for six months and then the building should be dismantled to restore the site to its original condition. With that in our minds, in order to do a more sustainable project, we decided that the pavilion had to be rebuilt in a new place to extend its lifecycle. Therefore we designed a wooden Meccano like structure that could be easily assembled, disassembled, transported and reassembled in a new location back in Chile. We also designed its spaces flexible to host different uses and scenarios in the future. Once the Expo was finished it was decided that the new home for the pavilion was going to be Temuco, the capital city of the Araucanía Region. The chosen site was at the foot of national park Cerro Ñielol, a natural hill important for its proximity to the city center and for being a sacred place for the Mapuche (native inhabitants of the region).

Ministry of Social Development Headquarters / Undurraga Devés Arquitectos

Karen Valenzuela — Fri, 21 Aug 2015 09:00:00 +0000

The new building for the “Ministerio de Desarrollo Social” is surrounded by a complex context, on one hand we have the Santa Ana church, one of the most beautiful expressions of Chilean religious architecture from the XIX century, on the other hand, we have the Norte-Sur highway, one of the most severe urban interventions from the seventies that split the historic town center into halves.

Ruca Dwellings / Undurraga Devés Arquitectos

Igor Fracalossi — Tue, 10 Dec 2013 01:00:00 +0000

"Within our continent, there are still truly American peoples. They are the last representatives of those men who, through millennia, inhabited this continent, conquered jungles, deserts, endless beaches and unfathomable heights of the mountains. In the struggle for survival of these men, they developed an understanding of the various territories they inhabited, their climate, flora and fauna. Some domesticated plants and animals developing complex agricultural and pastoral economies, which sometimes reached state-like organizations. Others, more isolated and perhaps less demanded by the land they inhabited, long maintained its economies based on hunting and gathering.

San Alberto Hurtado's Memorial / Undurraga Devés Arquitectos

Cristian Aguilar — Mon, 02 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

The land where this memorial is located is a small park to the west of the Historic Center of Santiago, surrounded by a series of detached two to three story buildings constructed during the first half of the 20th century. It was here that the most neglected souls in city were accommodated, together with a small hospital, a church and the office of the Hogar de Cristo, a charity founded by Father Hurtado in 1944. The continuity of the facades gave way to a protected interior where, in 1995, we built the Sanctuary of Father Hurtado. The strategy, at that time, was to create a green area that would also serve the series of buildings for workers that surrounded this Sanctuary. The spinal column of the project is a passageway that run lengthwise, dropping as far as 5 meters below the level of the park. At the far end is the tomb of the saint and a small chapel. These buildings can hardly be seen in the midst of the gardens which, with clever landscaping, establishes a complementary relationship with the preexisting buildings.

Patio House / Undurraga Devés Arquitectos

Igor Fracalossi — Fri, 29 Nov 2013 01:00:00 +0000

In the history of architecture, there does not exist an architype so prevelent as the organization of living spaces around a patio. Unfolding over different civilizations, the typology of the patio house traces back to Asia in the year 3000 a.c., specifically in China and India. The Greeks, in the IV and V centuries, contributed major developments to the evolution of the model and influenced the understanding of the mediterranian patio house introduced to the Americas with the arrival of the Spanish. The house presented uses the historical sediment as its inspirtation and redefines the model in a contemporary manner.

Capilla del Retiro / Undurraga Devés Arquitectos

Victoria King — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 00:00:00 +0000

dark, inmemorial things whose fragments