Go to the University to Change Your Mind In addition to his architectural work, Cristián Izquierdo teaches at Univer- sidad Católica´s Architecture School and says that what he enjoys most about teaching classes is being surprised by other people's thoughts. “I go to the university to change my mind, not to reaffirm my certainties, and that's why I don't like to teach technical things. I like to visit because there one is surprised with visions that come from students and also from other professors. In other words, I like the academic conversation because in the office one is always very involved in one's screws and obsessions, and if I go to the university and I have to correct something that has nothing to do with anything... I go back to the office and I can solve things faster. For me, it's like hitting myself on the shins so I don't follow such a linear path or so I don't close myself in on my own truths; I don't want that”. !
We need to give our clients confidence that we are not going to cheat them, but that we are working to do our best. This is the change of mentality necessary to move forward with different construction logic that requires a civic culture”. Linking the Scope of the Project with the Scope of the Dwelling Despite the initial risks, Tecton Workshop has had a development that implies accumulated knowledge and an offer of specific value, attractive for the architectural quality safeguarded. During these last few years, Cristián Izquierdo has created a sort of catalog of his own, of joints, of ways of building that can be replicated. He has highlighted the value of an urban typology of continuous houses of up to three stories, with a basement. Does this knowledge allow him to propose these types of joints, this technology as a basic typology in new projects? Is he inter- ested in having his own catalog? You have gone from drawing plans to making models, and that is a turning point because the model is where the knowledge lies. “Of course, in Alcantara, we delivered blueprints of the elements and now we deliver the model that goes directly to cadworks, and the part of the digital manufacturing is not mediated by the blueprint. However, the answer is that I am not interested in having my own catalog, because what we aspire to is wisdom rather than knowledge”. “I don't think one carries a kind of static catalog because when one learns something, more possibilities open up in other directions. Nor am I interested in pontificating, saying: this is how things are done," he adds. "I'm more interested in getting us into trouble. We are interested in the creative dimension of the matter and, as we gain experience, we change the way we do things and we hope that this way will open up new challenges for us. I would like to compliment this by saying that we are interested in creating an architecture that is replicable to a certain extent. There are certain typological organizations, if you will, that we believe can be replicable in different contexts, with different budgets, with different programs. Certain ideas of the city transcend the specific case and that transcend even, I hope, our work and can also be replicable by others. Just as we were not born alone, but have been nurtured by both family tradition and the great tradition of architecture, we also hope to participate in this conversation with other colleagues. Therefore, certain solutions are repeated, both at a typological and constructive level, but precisely by meditating them, these solutions also open up a new path”. In fact, after designing and building several condominiums, a new concern emerged. "We are deeply involved in analyzing buildings' life cycles and understanding construction as a series of productive se- quences, from the extraction of certain resources to seeing what hap- pens to those materials once the building is dismantled". He adds, "What interests me about this one, besides being able to measure the building's carbon footprint and all the technical dimensions regarding pollution -a public policy that I hope all of Chile will have implemented by 2035-, I am fascinated by the possibility of making it expressive. I am interested, above all, in the possibility of significantly linking the scope of the project with the scope of the habitation, of the buildings' use. To establish communication vessels between the theoretical dimension of what one thinks and the practical dimension of how the building is lived. In other words, we try to link the organization of the construction logistics, of the different materials, with the eventual social organization of what these projects allow in terms of a desirable way of living. There is a kind of communicating vessel, in the sense of building with small parts, where each part by itself does not resist; but if all the parts agree with each other, they acquire a higher level of resistance. The idea is that this beginning occurs both at the material level, i.e. by joining sticks, and at the level of constructive logistics, by joining heads and procedures, and at the level of social organization: by joining people who can have a fuller life than each one separately”.
FELIPE MONTES THE SAME TECHNOLOGY FOR SOCIAL HOUSING AND HIGH STANDARD PROJECTS
By: Pablo Altikes + Javiera Benavides + Yves Besançon + Soledad Miranda + Francisca Pulido +Sebastián Rozas
E2E's general manager details the Marco Platforma construction system for industrialized housing. He relates the experience of being involved in the post-fire reconstruction of Viña del Mar, with all its dramatic complexities. The idea of venturing into the industrialization of wooden housing had been on the mind of engineer Felipe Montes since before 2018 when he took over as general manager for the E2E Company. That year, speaking precisely about boosting wood construction at the Wood Innovation Center at Universidad Católica, he connected with Etex, a Belgian con- struction material company that has plants in more than forty countries, and they formed an alliance between Etex and Arauco. After this joint venture commissioned him to start the project, his first step was to travel to Germany to learn about the industry and buy machinery. Initially, he asked the suppliers: "How many houses will I be able to build per month? The answer was: that it all depends on which house, which model, and whether it is high standard or a building; you have to consider the type of houses you want to produce.
→ 161
Made with FlippingBook Annual report maker