Espiral, Installation view at Palazzo Mora, 2016.

Territory in Contrasts
Chile is a territory conformed by a wide variety of climates, cultures, and landscapes, such as the Patagonia, the Atacama Desert, the central valley, the mountain areas, the lake and coastal areas. The local geography, despite its massive changes in its different latitudes, allows that most of the cities are located interconnectedly and accessibly however, the same geographical condition, causes that some urban settlements are located in isolation, resulting in remote areas and extreme climatic and geographical conditions. This situation requires specific responses to the development of settlement, where the understanding of the environment becomes the key factor for permanence.
The role of architecture in these cases must precede the variables and should be able to become a vehicle of equity and integration for these communities as well as a bridge between memory and development.
In these scenarios, a particular phenomenon emerges manifesting from the spontaneous acts of the inhabitants that result in the hybridization of the programmatic functions in public buildings in remote areas. Their use and needs manage to transcend the original programmatic condition by adhering to the functions and shortcomings based on the structural and cultural needs of the different locations, such as leisure, culture, recreation, and the civil. These acts reflect the appropriation and attachment to the place, describing the identity of each locality.
"Territory in Contrasts" originates from the ability to account for the identity of the territory and its inhabitants through the action of men on the landscape according to their forms of settlement. For this, we put value in the town of Alto Del Carmen, located in the province of Huasco, through the construction of the future Municipality.
Study case
In 2012, Espiral + Iglesias & Prat Arquitectos, was awarded the tender commissioned by the Architectural Department of the Ministry of Public Works of Atacama, to design the future Municipality of Alto del Carmen in the Atacama III Region. Construction began on the 3rd of December, 2015.
Alto del Carmen is located in a remote and isolated place, inserted in the Huasco Valley, at the crossing of the rivers El Transito and El Carmen, where the Huasco River starts. Surrounded by mountains of strong ocher color and of a dry and stony composition, the village does not exceed 700 inhabitants and, except for the church, no building exceeds two stories high. In 2015, Alto del Carmen suffered a severe alluvium that destroyed part of the town; therefore this building, in addition to becoming the meeting place of the town, also will become the landmark of the city’s reconstruction.
The exhibition
Visitors are invited to experience and imagine Alto del Carmen through the senses. The user will connect with the place through the interaction with an installation structured by textures, images, sounds and time, where the degree of participation of each visitor, plus their own imagination, becomes another factor for the personal recreation of a place and a way of life.