The new home for Santiago, Chile-based Empresas Transoceánica

The new home for Santiago, Chile-based Empresas Transoceánica is as much a park as an office. The long, narrow, bulbous shape of the building not only creates an organic element on the landscape but also allows daylight to penetrate into the space and provide views for all points in the interior. The building’s orientation is set to maximize natural lumens, and a wood-screened façade to the north side helps reduce heat gain. A green-roofed parking garage tucked under the building allows the undulating land surrounding the office to become an extension of the working environment.

The building’s envelope, insulation, solar orientation, lighting, and landscape were all considered before the
mechanical systems in order to reduce its overall energy needs. Cooling and heating is provided by a ground source heat pump that draws from 75 meter deep wells. The exterior sun screen allows for clean lines of sight from the interior without solar heat gain or a distracting frame system. Large screened skylightsalso fill the public spaces with diffused light. The facility is three stories in height with two levels of underground parking.

The elegant landscape surrounding the building is actually the roof of the parking garage. The parking entrance sweeps below grade and back up again on the other side of the grounds. The design’s rolling form extends the organic aesthetic of the building outward, blending the natural and built environment into a cohesive campus.

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