Next Project

Hotel in Tierra del Fuego

Part 2 Project 2008
Isidora Irarrazaval Oehninger
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile | Chile
The PROJECT is a challenge that seeks to innovate in forms that responds to different climate phenomena in an extreme part of the world, extreme meaning an extreme place and also an extreme climate.

The LOCATION is the austral part of our territory, the southern cone tip of America: “Patagonia” or “the end of the world”, where the vastness and immensity of the “pampa”, coupled with strong winds and low temperatures, result in the cold desert, a place where survival is the way of life.

The CHALLENGE is not only to allow man to inhabit by means of climate control but also one that will orient him and establish a measure that allows him to take ownership of the territory. Following the strategy of the first inhabitants.

The EXCUSE is a hotel in the surroundings of “Porvenir”, the port of entry to the island “Tierra del Fuego”, a program that seeks to empower tourism development.

The HYPOTHESIS comes from the dilemma: How to protect oneself from the wind and face the landscape?
To protect oneself from the wind, one hides, but when one hides one cannot face the landscape. So how do we protect from the wind and face the landscape?

Protection is attained through the windbreak condition offered by a wall that creates two areas: wind area (uninhabited) and wind shadow area (inhabited).
The wall also faces the landscape with an outstanding interruption due to its position and its form, illustrating the wind and by its size, scaling the territory.

The OBJECTIVE is to create through design of a wall a sustainable project that results in maximum comfort. To propose a form of building for the “pampa”, where the landscape, climate and materials are the foundations for sustaining survival. A building from the place, for the place.

Isidora Irarrazaval Oehninger


The research project deals with the search of an answer on how to settle on a landscape with difficult environmental factors which is isolated from any other settlement.
This weak scenario is at the same time very attractive to people coming from abroad nowadays. The project takes this into consideration when proposing a medium size hotel for “Adventure Tourism”.
In what concerns the weather, very strong winds (up to 100km/hr), intense cold and scarce solar radiation are significant and remarkable. All of these generate as result a weather refuge, that with its design made out of wood (available nearby) generates an interior and exterior area of wind protection.

Tutor(s)
Javier Del Rìo
2008
• Page Hits: 5561         • Entry Date: 28 July 2008         • Last Update: 08 September 2008