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Architects: CARREÑO SARTORI Arquitectos: Carreño Sartori Arquitectos – Mario Carreño Zunino, Piera Sartori del Campo
- Year: 2007
Text description provided by the architects. In the context of the three interventions at the Metropolitan Zoo, it was designed the Management Building, a complex program construction: warehousing and food preparation for animals, would operate simultaneously at first floor, while the offices for the director, veterinarians team and different specialists will work at second floor . The first site visits were with some physical strain, the routes of the early nineteenth century included 20% slopes and stairs with steps of 25 cm. long and 22 cm. height. The road is long and visitors gather in required breaks to rest, used for animals observation and distant city views.
The site for the project was occupied by the existing warehouse, connected to the parking, for loading and handling stuff, below the Staff Dining Room and close to the Veterinary Hospital which is accessed by stairs; they climbed six steps with the animals on a stretcher for treatment. The new building takes the existing levels and incorporates new ones with a system of ramps and stairs. The various levels listed different uses, ranging from breeding rodents underground for snake feed, to the director office at building top. The route opens a gap that exposes the slope, where Zoo personnel get together, holding the warmth of close contact.
Different levels and programs overlap by a common envelope, an air open roof that functions as a regulator of light and winds from the outside to the workplaces.
The building moderate the natural shape of the hillside with ramps of 12% slope, among seven independent workspaces at different levels. They look at each other, and all of them looks to Santiago, creating a contemplative condition, that complements outdoors work at the Zoo. Finally, through the ramp, a wheel chair or stretcher can get into the Veterinary Hospital or a handcart to the Staff Dining Room.
