Vacation Resort In The Central Seaside Of Chile Part 1 Project 2001 J. Patricio Poblete Pontifical Catholic University of Chile Santiago | Chile The studio. The project proposes the integration of three independent systems of architectural elements in an open plan; a dry-stone wall system (slide 1), a structural system made of wood worked out in an artesanal way (slide 2), and a system of rooms designed as furniture. The first point describes the physical and social context of the vacation building. Points two to four explain the different systems, and point five describes how the entrance pathway should in a perceptual way look like. 1 Situation. The vacation spot was designed for people looking for a quite place to rest and study, situation that can be found in some clusters in Chile, where students go in order to prepare for their final exams. It lies on a plateau, between an 80-meter wide pine forest, and a few eucalyptus trees (slides 3,4). The place allows two main generous views over the low-lying land, and keeps its privacy from outsider views through small dunes (slides 5,6,7).2 The dry-stone wall system. This system of independent walls was designed in order to guide the different visitors pathways, and to build the appropriate land for the building (slides 8,9). The 1,2 meter high walls lead the visitors across the building and through their curve the main views are able to be seen. The 3 terraces formed by the movement of soil and the construction on the walls contain the public services (dinning-room, kitchen and hall), the pond and an overlooking site (slides 10,11). 3 The room-system (slide 12). Rooms lie over the public services in the second level of the building. The need for a calm vacation site has been interpreted as a mediterranean room where light and air is to be provided with patios that make one room from the other acoustically independent). Only a small gap in the wall that encloses the patio, frees the view of the occupant who can look at the sea sitting on a seat formed by the wall. The room was designed as a wooden furniture where main horizontal planes where prolonged in order to make things look larger (slides 13,14).4 The structural system. (slide 15) The rooms where ordered like the colours of a chessboard, where black means living quarters, and white patios (slide 9). The structural system was thought as a group of 5,7 meters quadrant cubs supported by their three dimensional diagonals (8 meters diagonal=maximal length of bamboo piece=5,7 meters grid in plan) (slide 16). The diagonals divide the spaces in-between the habitations forming rhomboidal figures in plan, where rooms keep distant from each other through triangular patios which give the room a new length (12 meters) (slide 17,18).5 Access. (slide 19,20) After leaving the car in a clearing, a dry-stone wall shows the way through the eucalyptus forest to the site of the building. Walking through the forest, and just after leaving a new, but smaller clearing where some seats are gently hidden by pine trees, the building appears through its corner right after turning a soft curve. A 1,5 meter sand depression leads the visitor under the building to a shaded space enlighten by a skylight, where the reception, new seats and the deck which contain the public services of the building lie on the sand, the main material of this level. This is the place where all the roads come together; the ramp to the upper deck where the rooms lie, the access to the public services contained in a single volume, the way to the pool or simply the path to the beach. "An ephemeral building on the central coast""There are two contrasting forces that act together. Mineral erosion – what has been built– that is promoted towards destruction, while vegetation –the living– is promoted to invade it all" (Gilles Clément, the eroding city).The objectives of the workshop are to understand and experiment the design and construction of an ephemeral building. That is, a building that is to last only three or four seasons, where the result is an evident physical surrounding produced by a series of interactions between what has been built, the geography, the climate and the man activities. The student has to be able to interpret the "spirit of the place" and move forward towards an original proposal for the development of the constructive possibilities of a specific material, in this case bamboo. They will also measure the impact that their proposal may have in the natural environment, and finally, anticipate, in a project, a coherent result. In this case, the intensive use of a material such as bamboo is proposed as structural and predominant because it is a simple, abundant and low priced product. Also because it can be experimented and internalised by the student in a direct manner, without a sophisticated, industrialised or excessively designed elaboration. The idea is that the student will question himself appropriately what, why, and how to manipulate, gather, join and produce a project for a building in a specific place. In this way he will be able to give an appropriate answer in concrete terms of design. The student is to understand the landscape of the place, from the vastest environment, its formation and characteristics, to the design of the smallest ephemeral building, and the relationships between what has been constructed and the open natural space. The place in which the building will be implanted is an eight hectares territory in the central coast of Chile. These eight hectares have been conserved in their natural state despite the fact that the surrounding environment is urbanised and degraded in several ways.When the specific project is implanted and developed , the student is asked to study the possibilities of the edification trying to conserve the natural characteristics of the place and its sustainable possibilities through time. The building programme consists of a vacation colony for small groups. The student has the liberty to characterise the programme according to his interests and the development possibilities of the project. The student has to understand that the building is ephemeral, which means that in can disappear in a few years, taken apart or be recycled.