FG ARCHITECTS + ORTÚZAR GEBAUER ARCHITECTS, Monroy building; Makuc House Installation view at Palazzo Mora.

Urban / Rural Scale
These two architectural firms based in Chile come together to show the equivalence of their works in their antagonistic realities through a common fund, the "urban / rural scale." This unifying element, "scale" is understood as the relationship and communication with the surrounding environment, which can be understood regardless of their situational context, culture, and geography, giving to the inhabit condition and proportion.
The projects presented here are trying to raise awareness through antagonistic environments where these offices develop their jobs.
FG Architects is a Chilean practice that was founded by Alfredo Fernández and Matías González. The practice has been finding new associates, Nicolás Arancibia, Mariana Gobantes, Rodrigo Martínez, Cristian Herrera, Juan Pablo Papic, and Enrique Colin, widening the range and possibilities of the assignments, while developing all kinds of projects.
Ortuzar Gebauer Architects' office was founded by the couple Eugenio Ortúzar and Tania Gebauer. They base their works on the importance of attachment to the place and its surroundings, with a fusion of tradition and modernity in a new architectural language.
Monroy building.
The Decomposition shape in response to recognize the human scale of its urban surroundings.
The project, an office building located in a neighbourhood that has been lately renewing itself, creates an urban landscape where houses and middle scale buildings coexist.
A site, marked by its condition of being a corner site where its best oriented and longer front, presents itself as a very irregular perimeter.
A building proposes a sinuous and continuous shape, yet it is searching for its way between the geometrical constrictions of the site and the inalienable condition to meet the maximum built permitted footage.
The assignment is to achieve an environmentally sustainable building that dialogues with the residential scale. Considering this, the amount of direct sunlight exposure through the crystal façade, added to the will of minimizing the perception of the building´s mass, was a fundamental consideration.
The proposal was a volume that decomposes itself through adding and subtracting exercises along the horizontal displacement of the units (floors), fragmenting the mass to recognize its parts in order to then recognize the neighbourhood scale. This fragmentation of the volume is reinforced in the horizontal plane through a strict modulation of vertical elements that partitions the length creating transparent and opaque planes depending on the curving shape.
Makuc House.
The Fragmentation shape in response to recognize the human scale of its rural surroundings.
The project is a house located on a peninsula where the relations of the place strategically dominate; the project must have the ability to adapt to their disparate uses constantly. The housing must form two to fifteen people, always practical and comfortable in its different functions.
The proposal retrieves the image of the ancient rural settlements, as a large volume breaks down into three and opens in a fan, taking advantage of the views and topography, sheltering each other from the wind and rain. Therefore, the house is inhabited by sluices, which open and close depending on its use.