Chile’s Regional Government has chosen New York-based Ennead Architects and local architects Cristian Sanhuerza and Cristian Ostertag to design a research center near Cape Horn, the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile.
The purpose of the Cape Horn Sub-Antarctic Research Center will be to promote study and ecological tourism in this ecologically diverse, albeit remote and sparsely populated, region, which includes a temperate rainforest. “It’s about as far south as you can get without going to Antarctica,” says Richard Olcott, a Principal at Ennead, reports Dezeen.
The site where the research center will be built is within the UNESCO Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve in Puerto Williams.
The research facility is a collaborative venture among the University of Magallanes, the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, the Omoro Foundation in Chile, and the University of North Texas. The center will house the Biocultural Research and Conservation Program led by Dr. Ricardo Rozzi, a native Chilean who is a professor at North Texas.
Ennead’s recent commercial projects include the Natural History Museum in Salt Lake City, the Standard Hotel near New York City’s High Line, and the renovation and expansion of Yale’s Art Gallery.
The research center’s exterior will be constructed with maintenance-free Corten steel that forms a self-sealing layer of rust around the structure. The interior’s auditorium will be wrapped in wood, which Olcott suggests would be a bit like the inside of a boat.
Ennead says there will be three programs at the center: education, sustainable tourism, and subantarctic transdisciplinary research, each with its own pavilion. The center will also include a lecture hall and café, exhibition space, and apartments for visiting researchers.
The project should be completed by 2017.
Related Stories
| Nov 6, 2014
Hines planning tall wood office building in Minneapolis
The Houston-based developer is planning a seven-story wood-framed office building in Minneapolis’ North Loop that will respect the neighborhood’s historic warehouse district look.
| Nov 6, 2014
Studio Gang Architects will convert power plant into college recreation center
The century-old power plant will be converted into a recreation facility with a coffee shop, lounges, club rooms, a conference center, lecture hall, and theater, according to designboom.
| Nov 5, 2014
The architects behind George Lucas' planned Chicago museum unveil 'futuristic pyramid'
Preliminary designs for the $300 million George Lucas Museum of Narrative Art have been unveiled, and it looks like a futuristic, curvy pyramid.
| Nov 4, 2014
Zaha Hadid's first building in Shanghai debuts
Sky SOHO is the third in a trilogy of SOHO China developments designed by Zaha Hadid Architects.
| Nov 3, 2014
IIT names winners of inaugural Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize
Herzog & de Meuron's iconic 1111 Lincoln Road parking garage in Miami Beach, Fla., is one of two winners of the $50,000 architectural prize.
| Oct 31, 2014
Dubai plans world’s next tallest towers
Emaar Properties has unveiled plans for a new project containing two towers that will top the charts in height, making them the world’s tallest towers once completed.
Smart Buildings | Oct 29, 2014
SCAPE’s 'living breakwaters' resiliency development wins 2014 Buckminster Fuller Challenge
New York-based landscape architecture firm SCAPE won the Buckminster Fuller Institute’s 2014 Fuller Challenge, billed as socially responsible design’s highest award.
| Oct 27, 2014
Studio Gang Architects designs residential tower with exoskeleton-like exterior for Miami
Jeanne Gang's design reinvents the Florida room with shaded, asymmetrical balconies.
| Oct 23, 2014
China's 'weird' buildings: President Xi Jinping wants no more of them
During a literary symposium in Beijing, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged architects, authors, actors, and other artists to produce work with "artistic and moral value."
| Oct 21, 2014
Hartford Hospital plans $150 million expansion for Bone and Joint Institute
The bright-white structures will feature a curvilinear form, mimicking bones and ligament.
