Ennead Architects has been chosen to layout a study centre on Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of South America, which will promote examine and ecological tourism in the remote area .

Sub-Antarctic Center by Ennead Architects and Cristian Sanhueza and Cristian Ostertag

The Chilean government appointed New York-based mostly Ennead to operate with regional architects Cristian Sanhueza and Cristian Ostertag on the Cape Horn Sub-Antarctic Investigation Center, as a consequence of a public competitors.

Featuring a cladding of pre-weathered steel, the style for the centre will take its inspiration from the dramatic landscape of the site, within the UNESCO Cape Horn Biosphere Reserve on Navarino Island.

“It truly is about as far south as you can get with out going to Antarctica,” explained Richard Olcott, a principal at Ennead.

Sub-Antarctic Center by Ennead Architects and Cristian Sanhueza and Cristian Ostertag

The region is a temperate rainforest with a delicate ecology, including a single of the world’s most diverse collections of lichen.

The centre will host programmes in education, sustainable tourism, and subantarctic research across a assortment of disciplines. The creating comprises a series of 3 pavilions, one particular for each programmatic region, linked by a glazed bridge structure.

Set into the side of a bluff, each and every pavilion emerges out of the land to type a peak, evoking the mountain ranges all close to the website.


Related story: All-natural Background Museum of Utah by Ennead Architects with GSBS Architects


The developing will take benefit of the site’s thermal mass and captures all-natural light from the north for positive heat gain, and is topped by green roofs.

Sub-Antarctic Center by Ennead Architects and Cristian Sanhueza and Cristian Ostertag

“We did not want to make a huge building,” Olcott explained. “We needed it to be set into the land and be highly effective.”

The building’s rusty cladding will be Corten steel – a variety of pre-weathered metal that kinds a self-sealing layer of rust close to the structure and demands no servicing. “There is so much climate here, so much rain,” explained Olcott. The material’s reddish hue also matches the colors of the local flora.

The use of long-lasting supplies was of the utmost relevance since every thing have to be imported to the remote region.

The centre’s auditorium interior is wrapped in wood. “It’s a bit like the inside of a boat,” Olcott explained, noting its resemblance to the canoes and baskets of the region’s native peoples.

Sub-Antarctic Center by Ennead Architects and Cristian Sanhueza and Cristian Ostertag

The study facility is a collaborative venture among the University of Magallenes, the Institute of Ecology and Biodiversity, and the Omoro Foundation in Chile, and is also associated with the University of North Texas in the US.

Even additional south, the world’s first mobile analysis facility on Antarctica’s floating Brunt Ice Shelf opened in 2013.

Ennead Architects is known for a variety of cultural, institutional, and industrial tasks, ranging from the Normal History Museum in Salt Lake City to the renovation and expansion of the Yale University Art Gallery, as well as the Common Hotel straddling the High Line in New York.


Task credits:

Architect: Cristian Sanhueza (Temuco, Chile), Cristian Ostertag (Santiago, Chile), Ennead Architects (New York, USA)
Ennead design spouse: Richard Olcott
Ennead management companion: Kevin McClurkan
Ennead project designer: Zach Olczak
Ennead venture group: Josh Broadway, Michael Caton, Lanxi Sun, Marcela Villarroel Arestizabal (Studio Met+)

Sub-Antarctic Center by Ennead Architects and Cristian Sanhueza and Cristian OstertagMassing concept  Sub-Antarctic Center by Ennead Architects and Cristian Sanhueza and Cristian OstertagLayout concept  Sub-Antarctic Center by Ennead Architects and Cristian Sanhueza and Cristian OstertagWebsite program Dezeen

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