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Architects: Bastias Cardemil Arquitectos
- Area: 452 m²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:Pablo Casals-Aguirre
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Manufacturers: Budnik, Hunter Douglas, ZWCAD
Text description provided by the architects. The project is part of the third lane addition masterplan of the 5 South Route, from Angostura to Rancagua, in central Chile. It is a complex of two identical buildings facing each other and towards the road, which has the purpose of controlling the weight of the freight vehicles traveling on the highway. Being a public investment gives the design of these infrastructures an additional responsibility. These are buildings that belong to all of us, so they must be conceived from the common good to maximize their investment, both from the point of view of the territory where they are located -since they will be part of the landscape for many years-, as well as from its operational and usage point of view, considering its sustainability and expected service life.
The greatest design challenge in this commission was to place a habitable building in direct relation to the busiest highway in Chile and to ensure high comfort standards in its interior. As an architectural response, and given the noisy and intense context associated with a highway, we proposed a first floor made of reinforced concrete. A solid block, closed and resistant, helps to isolate the noise and minimize the risks of intrusion. At this level we placed most of the rooms required - bathrooms, break rooms, administrative offices - which are arranged around interior courtyards, small gardens, and voids, allowing them to open up inwards, to naturally illuminate and ventilate, seeking to build an inner habitat, disengaging with the immediate context. The control room is proposed on a second level, inside the lightweight volume of a steel structure, with glass and metal panels cladding, intending to achieve contrast between both levels. This control room has been designed as an open interior, without partitions, with an unobstructed 360-degree view, to maximize visual control of the route, weighing scales, and vehicles that circulate around the building.
In order to connect both levels, two circulations were projected, one inside the building for the exclusive use of station operators, and another outside, which serves the offending drivers, who must go up to the control room to regularize their situation. This second staircase was treated as an expressive element of the building, to increase its exposure and visibility from the parking lot, guiding the user to the entrance.
