"[Architecture] needs its shadows; this shadow is a bit of ideology, a bit of representation, a bit of subject: ghosts, pockets, traces, necessary clouds; subversion must produce its own chiaroscuro."
-Jorge Silvetti, The Beauty of Shadows.
Could imaginative fantasies for worker's housing in the desert spark innovation and new ways of living in challenging environments?
The vast Atacama Desert is populated primarily by variation in mineral color, flocks of flamingos, and seasonal explosions of purple and pink flowers which carpet the desert floor. Over the last half century, Chilean mining giants CODELCO and COCHILCO have opened vast chasms in the earths surface and in turn, these companies have helped the country grow into one of the most economically prosperous nations in South America. Near their open pit mines, the companies have created dedicated towns for workers which often provide only a cot in a shipping container in the hot sun for domestic space for their workers. Looking towards the future, and the potential opening up of multiple new mines spread across the region, this project proposes a new urbanism for the miners and their families.
The proposed city is composed of a series of structures whose forms are loosely inspired by Chilean flora and fauna. These forms are adapted for specific uses; housing, core utility management, religious or community gathering, as well as recreational facilities including an interior soccer pitch and space for commercial outlets. The structures are to be constructed of composite fiber-resin shells and skins; this tectonic system will afford the city the lightness so as to be easily nomadic as the mines move and expand; allows for tremendous economies in both capital requirements and construction time when considered at full scale; and, perhaps most importantly, composite construction systems allow for individual variation and personalization at negligible additional cost.
The housing is arranged as a two level eight-unit plan. Each unit is radially arrayed about a central common space with a stair between the levels and towards both the ground and an occupiable roof. The units include most required furniture seamlessly integrated into the structures construction; these individual unit amenities include a modest private bathroom and split level living space and bedroom. Increasing the domestic space of each worker provides space for families to collectively relocate and cohabitate during working periods rather than be separated for months on end. Across the city, as this standardized housing structure is aggregated, individual units are removed in order to link multiple larger structures and create networks of housing with many of these cul-de-sac like neighborhoods.
Anchored into the skeletal structure, the domestic units are easily transportable by buoying the entire structure with helium balloons. Allowing the individual structures to be relocated within the city and to avoid the creep of expanding open pit mines which have historically enveloped worker’s housing.
Towering above the multi-family housing units sitting on the desert are two prominent structures. A large structure with six mechanical legs contains administrative facilities as well as water filtration and other centralized utilized. Shared among the various mines is a zeppelin which is home to an interior soccer pitch and various shopping and recreational facilities. This allows for each mining town to have access to commodities and forms of life that they may left behind in Santiago, Calama, or Antofagasta.
