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Architects: Oficina Bravo
- Area: 6458 ft²
- Year: 2021
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Photographs:Bruno Giliberto
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Manufacturers: Invisible Objetos, Villalba
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Lead Architect: Sebastián Bravo
Text description provided by the architects. Casona Compañía is the name of an intervention and renovation project for a Historical Building Preservation. The original building was built in 1912 by architect A. Ríos T. in the Yungay district, located in downtown Santiago.
In 2016, the Casona was damaged by a fire, which destroyed almost the entire second floor and caused the facade fronting onto an outer housing passageway (cité) to collapse, rendering it nearly uninhabitable.
Throughout the restructuring process, we sought to transform the Casona into a collaborative and creativity-oriented space for accommodating Creative Industries. This is achieved through two complementary measures: first by retrieving the historical facade - conserving the accesses, recovering the architectural expression and original construction technique - and then by incorporating metal latticework on the inside, which serves to arrange the new areas and also functions as structural support for the facade.
Inwardly, latticework is structured around a central vacuum separating the public areas - the cafeteria and multi-purpose rooms - from the working areas. The first two are located near the facade and conserve the original building's heights, while the offices are stacked up towards the back of the Casona. The main area consists of a triple-height air volume elevation, which gives out natural light inside the building, where one of the fronts is embedded with wood that was rescued from the fire.
