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Easter Island Airport

Part 1 Project 2008
Victor Manuel Cordoba Montoya
Benjamin Alberto Campos CataláN
Sebastian Laclabere
 University of Chile | Chile
The project is an airport in Easter Island, the most isolated place in the world, this is one of Chile’s overseas territories, but has a completely different and unique culture and that’s what we tried to bring into the airport, a new way of approaching this kind of program, based on a cultural appropriation of the space by the users.
Easter Island is a very unique place, with a culture full of rituals, signs and with a very close relation between its people and the landscape.
Due to the special characteristics of this place, we couldn’t approach the project from the classic airport point of view; airports tend to be generic spaces, with very little cultural identity and usually hold very little significance, as its use it’s primarily for transitions from one place to another, however our approach makes the cultural heritage of the island, its territory, weather and landscape the most important part of the project, the heart and soul of the space.
The airport appears as a pure volume that floats over the hills, a simple shape, that doesn’t try to imitate or copy any of the formal references of the island, on the contrary it defines itself as a landmark in the territory, an object that through its simple geometry turns the main focus to the territory.
Even though the volume is pure and simple it’s interior gains a new geometry based on the interaction between the project and the territory, generating a series of inner yards, slatted shutters, and skylights of natural light, allowing the light, rain water and vegetation to come in, bringing a new complexity to the spatial experience for the user.
The project is completely developed in wood, with a structural roof set made of sawn wood beams lightly floating over the pillars system, exploring the expression and structural possibilities of the material.
Finally the prime objective of the airport is to be a container of all the manifestations of the island, from the cultural behaviors and characteristics of its people and culture, to the unique territory that forms the island.



The Project consists of an academic exercise that at the same time allows them to participate in a national architect students contest sponsored by wood entrepreneurs.
The project was the construction of an airport for Eastern Island, cultural heritage of the Humanity, located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. This project aims to incorporate functionality to a luxurious cultural legacy and symbolism of the island whose unique monumental legacy, Moais and Ceremonial Spaces, are part of the landscape.
This insular town has a lonely and mysterious inheritance. The requested task was to cover not only the arrivals and departures but also the cultural background of the island.
The landscape, surrounded by the ocean and marked by the prints of an extinguished civilization, reveals and expresses its volcanic origin.
The students´ proposal is simple and accurate. It consists of a simple semi-transparent volume, placed as a ceremonial platform integrated to the landscape without intending to produce a forced integration to the surrounding space.
The Project is developed in the proposed space gathering the life and cultural concepts of the island avoiding, the usage of evidential formal references.
It answers to the essence of the request; more than an infrastructural work, it is the meeting and gathering point of a lonely town and its millennial culture and the world.
The building is just one space that through the delicate incorporation of inner yards, slatted shutters, and skylights of natural light, defines the functional areas and symbols, harboring the programs of an airport and the manifestations of representation and culture.
The conditioning material of the contest was wood. It skillfully appears as exploring all its structural and expressive possibilities.
Pillars and arcs are the structural elements that have a light and a slender expression, along with a semi-transparent closure of slatted shutters that propose a flat area giving a ceremonial and symbolic atmosphere that harbor the characteristic functionality of the airport.

2008
Easter Island airport
Eastern Island is a place full of meanings, with a highly singular culture, based on signs and a particular way of integration with the territory. In this vast landscape the airport appears as a landmark, a reference in the extension of the fields, a subt
Airports are typically conceived as generic spaces or "non-places", places of transience that do not hold enough significance to be regarded as "places". In a place like Easter Island, so full of rituals, signs and with such a special culture, the airport
Easter Island is one of the most isolated places on earth. Air travel is the main communication to the outside world; therefore the airport is the first place outsiders arrive. This place not only makes tourism possible, it also is the place for hospitali
The airport it’s located near Hotumatua road between Orito Hill and Hanga Roa, the only town on the island. This specific point responds to the access required by the program. The main road associated to the project communicates the town with the rest of
The building can be described as a pure volume that becomes detached from the ground transforming the vegetal life in part of the internal configuration. At the same time the volume opens itself through the roof to make use of the natural light for the pu
The project approaches to the island as a strange object that barely touches the territory. The airport doesn’t try to imitate the landscape or use folk images to develop its form; on the contrary it takes the form of a pure volume that contrasts with the
Airport plan + 2, 5 mts 1. - public plaza 2. - drop-off 3. - ceremonial stone plaza 4. - access ramps 5. - SAG (Agricultural and stockbreeding service) 6. - airline office 7. - public restrooms 8. - counters hall 9. - cafeteria 10. - welcome hall 11. -
The facade appears as a skin, a wooden membrane that separates the interior from the territory, the landscape and the weather. It acts as a limit that unveils the island to the visitor by pieces, as he walks out the airport.
The transition space, between the filter facade and the interior wood deck and through the access ramp marks the entrance (or exit) into the island. This space holds a special point of view on the ceremonial plaza, where the dancing rituals to welcome the
The entire program is sustained on a wooden deck elevated one and a half meters above the ground level. This allows the building to ventilate and to give a better maintenance to the wood on the platform. The suspended platform also gives the space necessa
The project not only takes the natural light, it also converts it into energy through solar panels installed on the roof. An infrastructure of this scale on an island that uses fuel for energy that costs four times the normal price needs a way to make ene
The modular beams system allows for the project to save great distance without large pieces of wood, making it possible to be completely built in sawn wood reducing the cost and making easier to transport the pieces from the continent. This beam set compo
Interior view
Model without roof
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