VOCH

The unique architecture, urban development and idiosyncrasy of Valparaíso has given the city the recognition as a part of Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Therefore, a center to study these factors from the uniqueness that represent would not only consolidate the title the city has, also the future development preserving the unique idiosyncrasy. In this way, I proposed a center of cultural heritage studies, proposed for the association of humanitarian studies of Latin America. The project is a multifunctional building of mixed uses aiming to integrate the public transit into the activities within the building.
On the one part, the building is designed for the use of scholars and research, and on the other for cultural and public activities, aiming to open the infrastructure for the public as a new semiprivate-public place of mixed encounters.

The project design is an inspiration of urban fragments collected during my years as an architecture student. I might need unknowledge, that an organic city like this one, might contain broader and smaller pieces defined by the scale the observer put the focus on. The following vary from facades, sections, perspectives, plans, textures of my experienced life inhabiting the city, resulting in a field research of notes and drawings that finally evolved to shapes, spaces and buildings that aim to integrate the complexity of the city in one infrastructure, a particular mimesis of the essence of the urban nature and landscape.

The extensions of the San Luis square along the south side of Cerro Alegre is proposed as a new access to the hill that is less consolidated for the public transit on this side. The building intends to grow as a large plinth extended along the street until the intersection with Capilla street where the facade in front of the transit opens a gap that allows the public outside the building to look through it to the opposite hill, inviting them to conceive the big built mass broken letting the city come inside.

Valparaíso is a city that grows vertically, thrilling its inhabitants and passengers with nooks and crannies in their transit. The sections represents these in which the mass is broken in crossing voids and none of the elements arrive at the same line, it puzzles the transit as the city puzzles and entangles.

In facade planimetry is shown how the roof top is extended from the upper transit intersection (St. Luis plaza) following the ground level it creates a new public space for encounter or for observing both the growing city and the inner city proposed in the project.