Archinect - Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

Salk Institute by Louis Kahn

2006-04-17T00:58:51-04:00

During february i went to San Diego, California. Had a great time with the coolest people ever. Plus, my friend pato was there as exchange student. It was nice to go around the campus skateboarding, it has some pretty modern movement concrete buildings. And accross the main street, there it was. On a cliff above the Pacific Ocean... the Salk Institute by Louis Kahn. Rather than words, 100+ pics to describe it on my architecture blog.

When school starts to fade

2006-04-17T00:56:10-04:00

So this semester, i started my FINAL project. It'll take a year, and we've got a sketch of a theme. Public usage buildings in downtown, and during the theorical aspect of this we are studying Mies and Le Corbusier, followed by a trip to Brazil in May to see large scale public buildings in concrete. All this mumbo jumbo seems pretty interesting, but what have i done so far this semester? It's been 2 months and all i've done is read a couple of books. Nothing else. So i decided to start drawing Mies. Lake Shore Dr Apartments... I finished the floor plan, and i will dig on the Mies Archieves this week to find any details about it. I found myself on a position on which i need to learn. And it'll be trough detailed drawings. I do this because i think that contemporary architecture, like OMA, is the same as Modern Architecture, being Mies. I still cant tell how, but soon i will. It sucks that i dont get to be much time around school so i decided to take a 2nd year CAD/CAM class. And i'll...

Internship

2006-01-04T07:25:10-05:00

As of monday, i started my office internship. In my school you get to do 4 internships in the last 2 years. (arch office, social work, city hall, technological/magazine). This will take one month of my summer. In february i plan on visiting California in the US. This office is very good, the architect has been selected for the Venice Biennale, and does some good houses. The good thing is that the office is small and they are crowded so i got to work in a full project! im designing the first draft of an office building with some retail space in the first floor. Very good for a start, i tought i'd be doing housing, xeroxing, coffee, etc... hehe.
ill post some work from this office soon. And on march i start my final project, kinda thesis-project. Theme will be Le Corbusier-Mies and the new construction technologies, applied on either a library, market or performing arts center in the downtown. I think i'll go with the library. Nice thing is that for research, we'll visit Sao Paulo to...

End of semester is coming!!

2005-11-08T06:54:37-05:00

beware!!!! last sutdio is about to finish. what you can learn from a 1/25 model? how to stucture it! if it collapses, real construction will collapse too. Im doing the last physical models, so i can get into some 3D viz that i'll need, working on Plataforma Urbana (a students blog about ciry and architecture, getting lots of visits this last days). Im learning Ecotect to do some sound visualization for acoustic simulation on an auditorium, which is going good. And i also got a cat, which is SO cute and sleeps on my lap while pulling this all.nigthers working on models. but hopefully, last semester will be over, and i'll need to do my thesis project. pretty cool ah? after that, real learning will start. all i could ask for this days, it's a day of just sleeping, not getting out of bed, eating and watching movies.more updates soon! i promise!

what i am doing...

2005-09-14T23:09:01-04:00

this is what im doing (updates..soon?):

- moving www.plataformaurbana.cl into an arch+urb blog
- studio: designing a teather, researching about acoustics with ecotect
- internship: working on construction details for a public square (veeeeeeeeeeeery slow)
- social life: national holidays approaching, party all weekend? celebrations at school during friday, hopefully i will post some pics...

inquiries?

new semester!!!!!

2005-08-27T06:06:40-04:00

a new semester has started!
and this is my last one before my thesis project.
so im pretty close on being an architect ;)
this semester theme for studios is "PeÃ±alolen" which is a district of the city located at the start of the hills. My studio will focus on a performing arts center lcoated in the civic center of the district. And i got my camera fixed and back on my hands, so i will try to post a lot more now :)
wish me luck!

Finally, semester's over

2005-07-10T11:03:06-04:00

so i finally finished my semester, after a tought studio i almost failed. but i passed all my classes and im in winter break. will post pics of my studio project and some ecotect work i've been doing. new semester starts in august, arg.

;)

but... it was worth all the hassle.
i just love architecture.

update..at last

2005-04-08T11:53:34-04:00

i've been slacking on my posts since i've had a pretty busy semester, working on some projects and lots of classes!
here's what's keeping me busy
studio: this semester all the studios have a comon place, called parque sur (southpark... !??!?!?!). in the limit between 4 districts that have 1 million ppl. but this limit is a void of 800hÃƒÂ¡ (800x100x100 mt) inside the city. the urban tissue crashes on this land with arid extractions wells (sand, stones,etc), with a depth ranging from 30 to 70m!!!! also, there's an old agronomy faculty, so there's another big open space (for crops etc). Some master students designed a plan for it, with a big park and housing development around them. but the most interesting part of the proyect is the one focused on the wells. the idea is not to fill them and house them. instead, keep them and build stadiums, zoo, and recreational spaces.. my studio is focused on the "shadow". we are researching shadow projects in public spaces to work on the main a...

Final Presentation of Internship

2005-02-28T13:06:08-05:00

So im finally done with internship, and project was shown with only a few crits (some floor textures, define some tree species and make a demolition plan). They loved it, and it has high chances of being built!!! :) would be my first built project, i'd be so happy. The plan looks weird here, because of downsize. If you recall my previous post describing the site, you'll notice the areas i worked and what i did:

plan

redefine the parking sector and give it a double use: ordered parking (section C-C') and during night/weekends in summer, they can be closed and used by restaurants in fron of them (section D-D'). that's why there's no change on the floor level, it's just inclinated to gather the rain water in a line along parkings. street is also at same level and with stone blocks, so drivers notice that they are on a more pedestrian area and drive slower. stainless steel cilinders define the street.
section c-cÃ‚Â´ section d-dÃ‚Â´
parking render showing texturesparking render with car a...

room mates?

2005-02-15T12:30:08-05:00

i wonder how is the dorm system in the US... wonder if it's like in the movies ;)
as for us, in chile, we dont have dorms. so if you are from another city, all you can do is either rent a room, rent an apartment or live in a relative's home. i've tried everything: from living alone (first year out of high school. yay) to share an apt for 2 years (which was good) to share apt with my little brother, to again share apt but with 3 more ppl (worst experience ever)... now im living with my brother 1 block away from campus (which is the best location ever) and im looking for someone that rents an empty room i have. so today i wasnt working on my internship and decided to do some nice looking ads (visual comes first, always ;)) that im going to hang at college. hope school isnt closed due to vacations, otherwise i'll have to do that in march. in case anyone is coming to chile as exchange student, feel free to contact me ;)
so please, share your experiences in the housing subject :)

more on summer + internship

2005-02-14T19:04:01-05:00

Well, after traveling around the city, watching the work city hall has been doing in public spaces i've been getting to know all the elements they use: vegetation, chairs, public furniture, and specially the textures/colours/materials. with this elements not it's time to start working proposasls for this new "square"-parking-public space....
around 1000mÃ‚Â² which is not bad for a start. first thing is to close a lowly used street and "attach" it to the current restaurants so that side can start a pub-restaurant development, given this new space, that can be used to place outside tables in a more relaxed day, without interfiering with pedestrians. re accomodate parkings, trying not to remove any (since they are paid, city hall makes money out of it...). So at big scale, this is what the intervention will be: a pedestrian way with trees and some furniture to enhace the restaurants-pubs sector, reacomodate the parkings, in a way that they can have another use maybe during nights a...

your semester is my vacations...

2005-01-24T00:01:13-05:00

so after finishing studio this december (which i did pretty well...) i was ready for a whole summer of fun (southern hemisphere), but i decided to do my internship. i don't know if that's the word you guys use when you work while you are still a student, and you gotta report that work to the university. and it's mandatory. well, in my school we got up to 5 of this practices!!!. the first one is named something like "build practice", in which you got to work under a building company, in a work in progress. i did mine in a housing development last year. after that you get to do 4 more: municipal practice (working at city hall, either in their building or urban department), service practice (where you work for a non-profit organization), technologic practice (doing something "techno" related to arch, such as building process, 3D research, publication/documentation work, etc). and the last and more important: office practice, where you get to work on an office... which might ending up a...

xmas update

2004-12-27T01:38:43-05:00

well, semester is over and im headed for summer vacations................................. NO!!!!!!!!!
internship during january.. working @ city hall in a parking lot reconversion..which sounds nice :)
well, i didnt post much because of my broken camera, but now i have some stuff to show about my studio examn. i did well (6.5/6.5/5.5 out of 7).. the building is a metropolitan library, but plans-models-renders will speak for me :)

main model, south viewmodel detail south view of the modelsection detail site model material render, north view with brise soleil render, model, and project "logo" texture detail section (with park and river)another section, in the long way showing how the building is a big "bookshelf" holding books, with perforations to take the books to the light (the hanging boxes) sectionsection north elevation portion, with texture north render, from the river

after.class and studio

2004-10-19T20:56:24-04:00

Well, seems that the "after class" party we threw at college was a success... ppl from both design and architecture schools, ranging from studio 2 to ppl doing their thesis...it was very nice, but guards werent happy at all since we didnt wanted to leave when campus was being closed (we dont have dorms in college). I'd like to point out that in my school most ppl is young since in Chile the university system isnt "college" based like in the US: once you are out of high school, you enter your universsity for your "major" inmediatly. After that, you can get a master or follow the doctorate program (my uni is the only one giving them in Chile).
a view from the wood deck, outside our radio room

claudio and soledad with the plastic cups we stole from the supermarket....those were supossed to carry pinneapples, but the ingenious architects found a new use for them

another view from the yard, around 50 ppl hanging out all afternoon
And well, another busy week with studio. Now the teacher lov...

new arch building, new studio ideas

2004-10-13T19:57:52-04:00

This is a theoric classes tests week, so we arent forced to work on studio...but since im going so slow im working on it for tomorrow's critic, and studying for advanced structures (earthquakes/wind/etc) test on friday.

my library's perspective: two big walls holding boxes that contain the recints

the north elevation, showing all this shadows from the boxes (southern hemisphere)
The new school building construction was going kinda slow but all of a sudden it started to be more shaped. Once the structure was finished, all the finishes are going very fast.

the facade of the new building

the facade of the colonial building, opossite to the new one
Since i help the guy involved on the school's radio, we are organizing a small gathering this friday afternoon after studios: we are bringing ice/glasses and mixing some music.... everyone's invited. even archinect ppl :)
i'd like to see the music taste of ppl in archinect. personally, im into indie, postrock, pop punk, emo. but this is the ...

CHilean arch to do a lecture in harvard

2004-10-05T20:06:42-04:00

CHARLA DE ALEJANDRO ARAVENA
se presentarÃƒÂ¡ en videoconferencia desde Harvard

Fecha: Martes 12 Octubre
Hora: 18.oo hrs.
Lugar: Auditorio Sergio LarraÃƒÂn.Lo Contador

translation:

ALEJANDRO ARAVENA LECTURE
videoconference from Harvard

i highly recommend to the harvard guys to attend this lecture. This teacher from my school is getting a lot of respect in the theorical aspect and with his buildings.

field trips

2004-10-03T23:00:54-04:00

Ok, so while i was thinking in more ideas for my library, i decided to visit my university's brand new Med school building. One amazing project, done by A Arevena (PUC.Harvard) and F Perez (PUC.ETSAB). It's very well acomplished, in terms of puting a modern building next to the beaux art (1894) central building, with steel-masonry-concrete details very well done. it was worth checking it out. You can see more pictures/plans on Chilearq, which is a very complete website with photos/plans of new chilean architecture, site maintained by a guy from my school.

the north facade which confronts the beaux art building
Now, on thursday.... cha chan! studio critic. and i finally did well on it, but im kinda late, because as of next week we are switching from 1:200 to 1:20 scale. So im working late this sunday to finish my general plan 1:200 so i can do some 1:20 details this week.

sections of my project, for more info check out my previous post
After that stressful day, me and 2 friends fro...

work.. in progress?

2004-09-28T19:02:23-04:00

Well, another week with good news. .i found out that my camera works, i just have to press the usb connector to it, it's kinda lose. Im posting pics of the finished chair. I hope you guys liked the postings, from the renders, to the construction and now the final chair. Now, on the construction and modeling class, we are going to to a house extension, up to 100 square mt, with budget and construction methods, using revit or architectural desktop (plus autocad-formZ-3dsmax).

my friend pablo next to our chair

the chair on a sunny day

construction details
In studio, i decided to move my building on the site and change the form, now im going for a "transparent wall" that will communicate trough views the river with the park, which are separated by a small 12mt hill. I did this scheme on sketchup to show how the program will be distributed: one big hole as a hall, and the books-lecture-computers-etc put along this set of 2 walls, which will contain the vertical circulations. some migth be...

a new week...

2004-09-21T22:08:50-04:00

Well, looks like my digital camera broke (USB connection isnt working) so i gotta take my memory sticks somewhere else to download the pics.. BOOOOH new camera this xmas :D
Urbanism wasn't that good last week: my paper wasnt good enough, because i confused the term "mutations". i tougth it was a physical thing when the teacher focused on it on a change on the activities (ie restaurant to food garden, regular banking with express banking, etc). Well, next shoot next month ;)
Since i decided to spend my weekend at the beach, i couldnt work on my studio project, so i got my "ears pulled" on studio critic. Scary!!! so this week i decided to give my best, and i started by spending all day in college. lectures from 8:30-11:30, and then non stop at library until 20:30, just a 40 mins break for lunch. I did all my "Advanced Structures" (structure design and calculation + sismic movements, which is typical in Chile) project and had to check some friends results to figure out some of mine. ...

one busy week

2004-09-16T02:23:06-04:00

This has been one hell of a busy week! studio on monday = no weekend at all... but i did well, now im almost done with the program distribution.
Whole tusday-wed was spent working on a chair for my digital construction and modeling class: a wodden chair made out of slices (a mix between aalto's chair and le corbusier's chaise long). Every student had to design a chair or redesign an existing one. I designed one by abstracting a rocking horse, but it was too expensive/difficult to build, so i joined my friend in the construction of his. Teacher's liked it, and recognized we did a good construction job on it. The chair turned out to be very resistant and comfortable.

My design (rocking horse chair):

My friend's design:

Good news is that it's this saturday is independence day !!!! 2 days of celebrations, and we got friday off so im heading to the beach with 2 friends from arch school. and now the bad news: I HAVE STUDIO CRITIC THIS MONDAY!!!!!!! but i choose not to stay and stil...

first month in a nutshell

2004-09-11T16:01:31-04:00

First month at school in a nutshell:

I'm not on the excercising stage of my career. 4th and 5th year students get mixed around a theme, in different studios.
This year theme was the Mapocho rive, which goes across our city (Santiago, Chile). Studios by Guillermo Jullian (Le Corbusier's atelier chief) around the city gris v/s the tartan textile; Dalencon, building social housing complex with materials that can be bougth trough a catalog; S. Gray (curator of the chilean expo on Venice's Biennale 2004) with medium density housing in empty lots along the river; Fco Vergara with social housing; SebastiÃƒÂ¡n Irarrazabal (AA London) with pavillions in 5 spots along the river; Pablo Allard (Harvard Master) with urban design in the upper section of the river; J.I. Lopez (one of the chosen for the chilean expo on the Biennale) with a metropolitan library in a park near the river, and J. Tuca with bridges across the river. I obviously wanted to be with Jullian or Irarrazabal, but because e...