Located in Santiago, Chile, Vanguardia Offices is a commercial building uses light as building material that was designed by Gonzalo Mardones. The main idea of this white steel box building is found in the internal hall. Gonzalo Mardones decided for this architectural project to open up the building towards the corner, the most public place.

exterior Vanguardia Offices building

The interior space also received vertical light through a series of skylights. This is done by opening a large crack that has the dual goal of access to production and allows the passage of light through the center of the building. In this way, the office building’s central part is always full of natural light, achieving a significant reduction in energy consumption. Natural light guide running in a Borges-labyrinth characterising the architecture design of the building.

sustainable Vanguardia Offices building

The intercropped office spaces and circulations are interspersed allowing an interconnected series of spaces and spatial variety. The architectural space is enhanced through a functional poly-space. Besides the use of the roof through the fifth façade (term coined by Le Corbusier), the building provides the basement with light wells that serve to expand the reach of natural light. This, the architects have defined as the ‘sixth façade’, aimed at the sky. The vertical light allows the use of sustainable underground ventilation and light.

exterior building facade Vanguardia Offices

The concept of the ‘seventh façade’ includes the idea of using mediators in architectural terms, removing closed framing elements from site to site. The white ‘Vanguardia Offices’ opted for the use of one material and colour. In this case the architects felt it necessary to use white in and around offices and workshop buildings. White amplifies the light and allows it to bounce of walls and ceilings; the building is clad entirely in white steel – façades, walls and roofs.

natural light interior building Vanguardia Offices

Natural light is used as the most important material, since the light models the architectural space. Opting for the use of light in both horizontal and vertical forms of the building ensures all venues including circulations have natural light for at least ten hours, covering all the hours that the building is used. Visit Gonzalo Mardones site

interior void Vanguardia Offices building

interior Vanguardia Offices building

interior staircase Vanguardia Offices building

interior building space Vanguardia Offices

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 7th, 2010 at 5:13 pm and is filed under Architecture Design, Sustainable Design. Tags: architectural project, Commercial building, Gonzalo Mardones, Offices Building, Structural system, underground ventilation, Vanguardia Offices building, white steel box building. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.