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To the Landscape Scale

Part 1 Project 2009
Angela Veliz Romero
Claudia Segura Soto
Makarena Moraga Garay
Pavel Sepulveda Vonier
University of Chile | Chile
To the Landscape Scale

“Airport, a passenger terminal for a medium sized city” is the project located in the city of Calama, in the north of Chile.
The project primary purpose is to encourage the development of the mining industry and the social and cultural sustainability of the region. In this way, we propose to allow greater integration of its people and regions of northern Chile to the rest of the world in a country that only looks to its capital, Santiago.
Calama has increased his number of daily flights and passenger traffic as much as has increased the cooper price, this has transformed the existing Airport Terminal Calama in an uncomfortable space with clear evidence of saturation.
Our proposal was based on creating, solving and designing an adequate node where are vital to the requirements of the zone, therefore, the airport, becomes a main connection in the city, promoting the management and development of industrial, economic and social criteria that will lead the city into a planned growth.

There were taken three variables in play, the desert of Atacama, which is the driest in the world that offers special climatic conditions, a great boldness in the vastness and an unparalleled forming rocky soil that makes it one in a kind localization; a sustainable way to develop the project including the effort to decrease the impact of a building of this size in the city; and the mining industry which to our country is his main arrival of money. Chile ranks as the largest producer and exporter of copper in the world and Calama is definitely his capital.
The airport encourage this city to became an economic centre dedicated to the mining and in this context the airport takes an industrial form to be a evidence of the vocation of Calama to the world. A rugged design and an appropriate scale to the place where is located the airport looks up to find his connection with the desert and the industry.

This project dedicates every part of itself to the place where is located as a criticism to the airports that repeatedly are found in totally different countries and cultures as a no one land. This airport is devoted to push up the city that represents, as an image, as an economic opportunity and as a door that opens to the future of this city.

Angela Veliz Romero
Claudia Segura Soto
Makarena Moraga Garay
Pavel Sepulveda Vonier


This project was made by 8th semester´s students of the University of Chile and was selectionated to represent the architecture and urbanism faculty of this University in a National Steel Company contest for students.

The topics that made the school chose them is the creative way of integrate typical elements of the place, like the landscape: desert of Atacama; and the economic activity of the region: the minning industry. The project combines this last two topics with a sustainable way of develop the project.

The project has a clear structure that is oriented lengthwise towards the airplanes, allowing the departure of the flights by the second level, leaving the first level for the access to the building from the city of Calama

The materials election has direct relation with the place. The principal activity of the country is the Mining, especially copper exploitation, and Calama is his capital. That is why metals like steel and copper plates play a protagonist role in the airport.

The project´s sustainability in the climatic way is solved with water mirrors that surround the north face of the building (the sun and predominant winds facade) that allows the evaporation of the water that is introduced in the building y the wind, controlling the high temperatures during the day.
Calama has one of the better skies for solar panels, because it never is cloudy. The airport uses them in the roof to supply the artificial lights of the airport during the night.

The project was qualified by a group of teachers of the school with a high score, they stood out the well function of the airport combined with a clear structural approach and expressive materiality that give the final form to the project.

Tutor(s)

2009
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