Spring Semester Programme

Overview

The port city of Coquimbo is part of the Chilean Iron Belt – a geological province in northern Chile that extends along the Atacama Fault System, approximately 600km long and 25km wide, and rich in iron deposits. 

El Romeral is one of the biggest mines in Chile, located in the north of Coquimbo and connected by rail infrastructure to the port so that iron can be shipped to national and international markets. As a centre of industry and a sea freight hub, the city of Coquimbo sits between the ocean and a mountain range on the Pan-American Highway. 

The ongoing debate as to whether the El Romeral mine will still be operative beyond the next decade opens up opportunities to rethink the relationship between its logistics infrastructure and the urbanity of the city.

Participants in the Spring Semester Programme at Architectural Association will investigate urban challenges in this context to discover opportunities for projects that can foster further integration of rail infrastructure into the urban fabric, or provide a new vocation for the waterfront. 

Students will examine the environmental and functional conditions of the site, as well as the architectural typologies and socioeconomic profiles present in this context, by analysing both tangible and intangible conditions. 

The city will be understood as layers of information that together reveal drawing and mapping qualities, which will inform students’ own design narratives.

Method

• Through group work students will study the existing conditions of the two primary sites and their relation to the city, which will be understood as layers of information feeding into your own design narrative. 
• By analysing tangible and intangible conditions, each student will develop their own brief to target specific design challenges of inserting new developments within existing urban fabrics.