Student Housings
Against the Typology _ Marco Atzori
Analyzing certain structures characterized by mixed programs that evinced a variety of functions and combined uses, some critics affirmed that such buildings, definable as anti-typological, were the product of social and economic pressures mediated by the city, which had become a catalyst for new processes that gave form to unusual aggregates perfectly corresponding to particular phenomena occurring in certain historical moments. Recently, this pattern, described when it was a novelty, seems to have assumed more and more importance.
The social and economic transformations that have swept China since the beginning of the 21st Century can be considered, for example, as generators of the Hyperurbane forms characterizing some recent architecture in cities such as Shenzhen, Beijing and Chengdu. Furthermore, it is the cities themselves that become the incubators of new, experimental architectural types.
This analytic process also includes the phenomenon of primary and temporary residence, such as student housing which, at this moment, is the object of research for the development of new forms of programmatic, functional and social aggregation in response to changes in the social needs of the inhabitants. As was stated above, only a heterodox combination of forms and a mixing of functions and uses can build specific responses to the current needs of society or its specific parts.
Chilean Houses in the Landscape
Cabinet of Curiosities _ José Luis Uribe Ortiz
During the last twenty-five years, Chilean architecture has drawn international attention due to architectural styles developed by emerging practices. These studios share the same geographic territory and landscape, but each of them developed approaches that are unique within their field. In the following pages, we will present five projects recently designed by contemporary Chilean offices, built at the fringes of the national territory as manifestations of an architectural style meant to enhance the inhabitants’ life who seek to isolate themselves from the city life and enjoy the quietness of the local natural landscape.
