The architectural competition for the Emergencies Bureau required us to provide part of the building with seismic isolators, we intend to use them generating an open porch for users. The seismic isolators as technical elements are transformed into compositional and symbolic elements of the building. The first floor porch is designed as a significant element of the project and main idea achieving a functional, spatial and symbolic organization, to make a technical device, developed to meet the demands of a seismic country like Chile, into a structural and architectural element, which defines the identity of the building. This is accomplished by reversing their usual location, which when placed under the underpass involve the emergence of a large space under the building, and by putting them on the underground this space is gained for the use of the project. The support structure on the insulators is arranged in a grid of 12.60 x 8.10, defining an organization of three parallel bays of 6.30 m wide with pillars every 4.05 m. The office building has a plan of 36 x 19 m and the emergency building has a plan of 32 x19 m, both on two floors served by an independent core with stairs and lifts to ensure the independent operation of the buildings.

PERFORMANCE