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Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. Andrés Bello University Regional Headquarters in Viña del Mar, Chile by Schmidt ArquitectosNovember 24th, 2015 by Sumit Singhal
Article source: Schmidt Arquitectos A perimeter volume layout that allows us to maximize solar exposure and views, creating a central space, Patio Mayor, a unique integrative (study) design for university life. The regional headquarters of the Andres Bello University is located in the coastal city of Vina del Mar in the V Region of Chile. It lies in a temperate climate zone with a prolonged cloudy dry season and rainy winter which is strongly influenced by the Pacific Ocean, generating low temperature fluctuations during the year.  Image Courtesy © Aryeh Kornfelp / Martin Schmidt Radic
 Image Courtesy © Aryeh Kornfelp / Martin Schmidt Radic The average temperature difference between the warmest and the coldest month is only 5° to 6° C and the daily maximum and minimum temperatures vary between 7 ° C in summer and only 5 ° C in winter. Additionally the Humboldt Ocean Current, which affects the entire coastline of Chile, brings cold water from the Antarctic making the average temperature and humidity 15°C and 82% respectively. The annual average rainfall reaches 450mm mostly concentrated between May and October.  Image Courtesy © Aryeh Kornfelp / Martin Schmidt Radic Unlike a traditional university campus, where each faculty maintains its own administration offices, classrooms and laboratories together, the new headquarters was uniquely designed to merge all the faculties of the university. It organizes these into 4 main academic areas; Engineering, Economics and Business, Sciences and Health, with their administration being centralized and each faculty only having its specific laboratories, and sharing generic classrooms, the library and refectory. In this way the university maximizes the use of the building`s capacity, reducing investment costs as well as centralizing all the services improving the economics of scale?  Image Courtesy © Aryeh Kornfelp / Martin Schmidt Radic Unity is the principle theme of the campus, that is why we planned a central space, the Patio Mayor, where students of all courses can interact, becoming the main exchange area of the campus. The academic areas were organized around the perimeter of the flat portion of the site forming the Patio Mayor (). In a second stage, a Dental clinic will be built on the high part of the site, a positive part of the Plaza () creating a strong social link to the community.  Image Courtesy © Aryeh Kornfelp / Martin Schmidt Radic Patio Mayor is landscaped with gardens on the first level and on the north and west facades, where the transit areas are. Creating a horizontal and vertical garden like this amplifies the upper walkways larger than technically required in places of residence. These high level passage ways are arranged in order to maximize sunlight for the mainly south and east facing classrooms and laboratories, having them aligned to the north and west makes the most of the light, looking over and enriching the experience of the Patio Mayor (). The perimeter building was divided into two blocks staggered in half and connected by ramps facilitating the movement of students and reducing the use of elevators, also the access zone and public spaces gain mean additional height improving spatiality.  Image Courtesy © Aryeh Kornfelp / Martin Schmidt Radic Since we had a short time span for the project, built in just 16 months, we opted for industrialized finishing materials, much of the interior partitioning was prefabricated accelerating its installation, also allowing future flexibility and an 80% reuse of material. For the construction of the facades we chose to work with glass and a single prefabricated Aluminum Zinc cladding finishing, which on the west facade is mounted as a double skin, with a veil parametrically designed to take advantage of optimal lighting conditions, sunlight and protect the facade from excessive sun exposure. To define the percentage of protection and use of the sun shading structures, we took into account the internal layout of the building, giving more protection to the classrooms and laboratories than the halls, cafeteria and corridors.  Image Courtesy © Aryeh Kornfelp / Martin Schmidt Radic We studied the last 10 years of direct solar radiation, cloud cover, solar diffusion radiation and altitude (?), using the March to December average, we determined the angle of the sun shading structure and diameter of the micro-perforations of the Aluminum Zinc cladding finishing, significantly reducing the costs of air conditioning and lighting in the building also creating the movement, (?) transparency and image of the building from the street.  Image Courtesy © Schmidt Arquitectos  Image Courtesy © Schmidt Arquitectos  Image Courtesy © Schmidt Arquitectos  Image Courtesy © Schmidt Arquitectos  Image Courtesy © Schmidt Arquitectos  Image Courtesy © Schmidt Arquitectos  Image Courtesy © Schmidt Arquitectos  Image Courtesy © Schmidt Arquitectos
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Tags: Chile, Viña del Mar Categories: Headquarters, University |
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