CCP Pavillion by República Portátil

Description of project by Republica Portatil

The pavilion is a transportable building made of wood and located in the Independence Square in the city of Concepcion, Chile. The structure, which was thought by the Chilean Development Corporation, CORFO, involves the creation of a pavilion able to accommodate exhibitions and activities related to the productive and creative sectors of the city. It must be considered that these are emerging sectors and one of their main problems is the lack of connection between them. What is being proposed here is a special setting which is able to gather and receive people and make this meeting place visible within a highly visited urban set. Once its public service is over, the pavilion will be dismounted   and moved to the Concepción City’s Creation and Collaboration Work Center (C3) to welcome other activities included in this program that will make use of it.

The site.

The intersection of Caupolicán and Barros Arana streets in the busiest square in the city of Concepcion has been chosen to generate visibility through the use of this pavilion. It is a highly popular place, filled with historic urban objects, and scene of political and religious manifestations as well. It is a public space that contrasts different social realities and is visited daily by hundreds of people.

The Pavilion

A foreign object in a public location.

A temporary wooden building installed in the busiest part of the city center, is without doubt considered a foreign object for those who walk by and visit this square. The natural reaction of the pedestrian is to ask what would be the purpose or reason for building such a structure in this location. Moreover, there is a spontaneous effort on behalf of the people who walk near the structure to unravel its meaning.

From this perspective, a number of interpretations and spontaneous explanations are born on what the meaning of this object could be, which is transformed into a public event. Possible explanations go from the image of an inverted speaker or a space satellite, which refer to its shape and try to see it as an object; to the naive interpretation of children as they run inside and see it as a home to rest and a circle to play in, making reference to the wooden edge that separates the center from the outside of the pavilion. But the most common hypothesis that has drawn our attention refers to the Mapuche hut: a vernacular building of the Mapuche people, aboriginesfrom the south of Chile. The most particular thing about this association is that it is not directly formal, because the hut is oval, with closed borders with only two entrances, and with a fire inside that produces smoke that comes out through two small openings at the top. This idea obviously contrasts with an open pavilion with 10 entries, entirely made of wood and open to the sky in its center.

Materials and structure.

In our culture, a wooden structure generates closeness. Moreover, a raw wood truss is a sign of precariousness and self-fabrication. These elements are the manifestation of an intervention with scarce resources, which seeks to explain the precise development in synthetic construction processes without ornaments and superfluous elements that are unnecessary at the moment of developing a structure of such a kind. These elements are interpreted as something close to people's lives, revivinga primitive image. Whoever enters the structure imagines that it could easily be replicated by his or her own hand with no need for fancy or foreign technologies. It seems that everything that is present before people's eyes is nothing but the reinterpretation of constructive ways that have always been present in our culture.

Pre-Manufacturing process.

The building process of this structure is the development of a series of pre made elements formed by smaller pieces. These elements are: trusses, floor, and coatings and linings as well as a series of individual pieces like crossbeams and beams. For the construction of the trusses, floors and linings and coatings, a series of large scale arrays were developed, on which the prefabricated elements were armed in order. The benefits generated by production based on matrices for prefabricated structures result in a mechanical process that reduces working time and does not require specialized labor for its implementation.

Once prefabrication units are built, the pavilion is mounted. The bottom of each piece is verified and once the process of labeling its parts is done, then it is disassembled and stored for transportation and subsequent installation in its temporary destination located in the city center. Approximately 30 days later, the pavilion returns to C3 Creation Center and stays there indefinitely.