The renowned foreign architectural firm Foster and Partners, together with its local partner Grupo Patio, are working on four eight-story buildings made with CLT and glulam pillars in the San Joaquín district. This initiative seeks to promote sustainable construction and the linking of the different surrounding communities.
The prestigious British firm of innovative and sustainable architecture, Foster + Partners, confirms its arrival in our country with a unique and special plan for the Metropolitan Region. A residential project, spacious and connected to its surroundings, structured almost 100% in wood.
The initiative will be developed in San Joaquín, next to the Patio Outlet La Fábrica. An asset owned for more than ten years by the Patio Group, local partner of the European firm in this project, whose design contemplates a second stage of expansion of the shopping center, in addition to the construction of four eight-story buildings structured with CLT, glulam pillars and a subway base of reinforced concrete.
"The structure of the buildings is mixed. Both the subway and the first and second floors will be reinforced concrete cores. From floors 3 to 8, on the other hand, they will be built with CLT slabs and Glulam pillars, where they will most likely be in pine," says Guillermo Ríos, deputy construction manager of Grupo Patio.
A commitment to sustainable habitability that proposes the social integration of the people of Sanjoaquin and all those who visit the site, since the buildings will bring with them public circulations that will intervene the spaces and thus link the neighboring communities, establishing new green and recreational areas, as well as environments conducive to a better quality of life in the area.
"Grupo Patio not only develops and builds projects, but also operates throughout the life of the asset, being one more neighbor and with the responsibility that this entails both in its environment and in the neighborhoods. One of the pillars of our sustainability policy, focused on the sustainable development of projects and responsibility to the environment. And in this, wood acquires a relevant value by reducing the carbon footprint and promoting benefits in the assembly work, which is faster and friendlier to the environment," adds Ríos.
The Foster + Partners project joins other international projects that accept the challenge of building with wood technology and structure, supported by a concept of sustainability that Grupo Patio wants to massify in the national industry. The Chilean company manifests a sustainable vision from the beginning of the project, exemplifying that the communal regulatory plan allows the construction of a maximum of 15 floors. Something that this company did not consider, since they seek to work for the benefit of an optimal result and not within the limits allowed by local regulations, as they claim.
"We see an implicit interest in the market for this type of wood projects, but in our opinion it is necessary to align the relevant actors to develop and acquire the necessary dynamism, such as regulatory bodies, municipalities, producers, manufacturers, specialists, developers, etc.", says the assistant manager of construction.
Another incentive for the British firm to develop in Chile is that our country is among the top ten timber producers in the world, generating expectations to encourage other related industries that contemplate different sustainable development objectives. The previous point is added to the ecological indexes managed by the European office, from its specialized area in carbon footprint reduction, which point to the decrease of CO2 indexes that have projects such as the one expected to be delivered in the southern sector of Santiago in 2024.
And, according to their studies and in comparison to another completely made of concrete, such a building manages to reduce between 3,000 to 5,000 tons of carbon dioxide in the environment. Numbers that, according to his calculations, would be equivalent to the removal of about a thousand cars per year from the Chilean automobile fleet.
Another expectation that is expected to be sustained with this project is to transform construction into a more productive activity with higher standards of control and quality. This, because a large part of the structural elements are elaborated from numerical cuts that allow more stable buildings and that incorporate specializations such as prefabrication, dry construction, minimum material losses, smaller tasks, less labor and better yields per person, since they are almost entirely based on assembly.
"From our sustainability model, we would love for all the material to be 100% Chilean. Foster + Partners approached us from the beginning and it has been our quest to develop the project, but we have found ourselves in the challenge of achieving it and comparing it with foreign solutions, with their levels of certification and quality from different parts of the world. We have seen that today it is difficult to achieve that everything is developed in Chile, but we are looking to incorporate the largest volume of pieces developed here", mentions Guillermo Ríos.
