De La Isla Hotel / Estudio Larrain

Curated by ArchDaily

Architects: Estudio Larrain
Area: 14179 m²
Year: 2012

Text description provided by the architects. Chiloe is a magic place. The island is full of great natural attractions, mythology and legends. The people have many rituals, habits and traditions, which are present daily on their maritime traditions, their handicrafts, their knitting and their singular gastronomy. Chiloe is a place with a strong heritage and cultural identity. It is marked by an extraordinary and varied architecture among the “palafitos” (stilt houses) and sixteen churches neoclassical style, which have been declared "World Heritage".

De La Isla Hotel / Estudio Larrain - Lighting, Chair — Courtesy of Estudio Larrain

Geographic location

“Hotel de la Isla” is located on a privileged place in Castro. In an area of 33,615.31 m2 accessed from Ruta 5 Sur. It is an elongated soil with steep seaward facing Castro.

Architectural design

The project is built around two decisions:

1. Establish a relationship between the hotel with the environment and topography by the proportions and most convenient scales.

2. The architecture builds on the Chiloe’s urban scale rescue.

The layout of building with 16,400 m2 far exceeds the format of the buildings on the island. Which is why, the first challenge was to achieve not only integrate it to the context but somehow maintain the local identity, especially with regard to certain concepts, modulations and colors.

So it was decided to design an elongated building, suspended over the hill following the topography of the most natural way possible. We take in turn the steep terrain to bury two of the 5 levels of the building. With this, we limit to only 3 levels emerging the natural ground level considering its height and the impact on the environment.

Then, we divide the building into 3 volumes each made up of "cubic volumes" in order to create the modulation that allowed us to create protrusions and indents that are highlighted with light and shadow generating linkage to the sum of the houses so typical of Chiloe and in turn avoiding the perception of a large building.

These simple cubic volumes are an abstract way to reinterpret the vernacular architecture.

These are urban gestures that allowed the building had been added and integrated with the local architecture.

On the facades, oxides and black colors were used, which helped with sensitive overlooking to the visible and invisible features of such particular site.

This is not abstraction formalism, but rather the expression of underlying ideas and images that make the illusion.

The base of the building is covered with black slate, to emphasize the idea that the building is suspended on stilts as many of the local buildings.

The existing vegetation was preserved, and routes and viewpoints were inserted between the trees. Thereby, not only rescued but this helped to the insertion of the building in the area.

Our office was also in charge of Project of Interior design Decoration. So in every space and its internal routes, we rescued the local nature, worked with wood, stone and concrete. We incorporate local artists, craftsmen and sculptors where we interpret artistic works through the legends of the island in order to make them known in a different way.

The building's interior is filled with ramps, paths and spaces of three or four heights where enclosures intertwined. We have designed routes that represent walks through the hills.