ARCHITECTUREPORTFOLIOMiguel Ortiz Figueroa

Selected Projects and Col laborations

Projects Shelter

Inner Patio House

OLED Installations

Salt Desert Housing

FAUM Auditorium

Black House

Shelter As a small exercise for a competition which asked to design a 9 m2 shelter with no services, the main approach was to create a space that would feel as a short stay refuge instead of a little house. Located in a urbanized peninsula in the chilean coast, the result is a 1m wide per 9m length inhabitable concrete beam that is embedded into the ground and cantilevers over a rocky cliff. The narrow space contains of only two windows, one works as an access and

Tongoy, Chile

the other looks at the sea, as so, the visitor encounters an interior isolated from its urban context focusing only on the view and sound of the Pacific Ocean. Taking in account the big daily oscillation of the coastal weather, passive sustainability decisions are taken, such as retracting the window to prevent the excess of direct sun heating and by the possibility to open both windows to allow natural ventilation.

Project Shelter CompetitionProgram Temporary RefugeLocation Tongoy Península, ChileSize 9 m2

Year 2009Client Google Inc.Main Materials Concrete, WoodType Competition

sunlight incidence

natural ventilation storage

access

Inner Patio HouseSantiago, Chile

The project is placed in a wealthy residential suburb far from downtown where most of the inhabitants use the car as way of transportation in most of their activities. This produced an area with empty streets and an uninteresting urban development. Thus the first decision was to avoid a relation to the context and potentiate an interior life by concentrating the different common programs around a 75 m2 inner patio which can be completely opened by movable windows allowing the common space of the house to become an intermediate space and get fully connected with the central patio, garden and pool. As part of the process of the project, the structure is intentionally complexed to

produce different light and shadows producing a blurred inside/outside feeling of the space, which is increased by the neutral tones of the materials chosen and the tree in the middle of the patio. All the spaces, have smaller side gardens, allowing constant natural illumination and ventilation. This exercise dealt with the intentions of a client that wanted a solution similar to the nearby houses. In a neighborhood full of excess, where “bigger is better”, the bigness issue was basically solved by spreading the program through the site instead of concentrating it in a 2 or 3 story house, pushing all the regulations and construction lines to its limit.

Project Inner Patio HouseProgram House for a big familyLocation Santiago, ChilePlot Size 1350 m2

Size 450 m2

Year 2008Tutor Architect Marcela YaluffMain Materials Concrete, Wood, GlassType Student Project

closed patio open patio + garden + living room roof structure

OLED Installations In a project for a competition organized by an OLED (organic light emitting diode) development company, the issue was to make use of a product under development that is only being used in a technology field. The challenge was to think of how to use the product as a material and in a bigger scale making use of the various properties that the material already offers, but thinking a few years ahead of its time.Taking advantage of the transparency and physical flexibility of the product, the proposal

Various Locations

is a temporary irregular shaped roof structure for public spaces on which the action of the OLEDs produces different atmospheres by increasing or decreasing the amount of dots and color chosen by the season. This way the project not only produces light and images, it also casts shadows according to the weather. Thought as an ephemeral installation located in many squares, the project aims to drastically change local people’s perception of their daily environment during a lapse of time.

Project OLED CompetitionProgram InstallationLocation Anywhere around the globeSize UndefinedYear 2006Tutor Architects Pablo Saric, Christian WincklerMain Materials OLED surfaces, SteelType Student Competition

OLED layer projected images supporting structure

Salt Desert HousingSan Pedro de Atacama, Chile

The client of a commission for a 15.200 m2 miner housing in the San Pedro de Atacama Salt desert was looking for a solution that could be affordable and that wouldn’t destroy the salt desert’s environment, and consequently the company’s public reputation.After many possibilities the final proposal was a zig zag line of housing units crossed by a line of common rooms and facilities, with the bigger programs on the extremes.

This formed protected patios that become a key element of the project while keeping the costs of expensive reinforced walls next to the ground to the minimum. To minimize the impact on the landscape while constructing, the excavated ground is used to form a flat base where prefabricated housing units are placed, reducing the construction on site plus decreasing the completion time of the project.

Project Salt Desert HousingProgram Housing, Sports FacilitiesLocation San Pedro de Atacama, ChileSize 15.200 m2

Year 2008Architects Pablo Saric, Christian Winckler, Felipe FritzCollaborator Miguel Ortiz Main Materials Steel Prefabricated UnitsType Comission

fitness center

housing

common rooms

common rooms and circulation

services

main entrance

dining hall

preliminary studies

FAUM Auditorium The building in which the new auditorium of the Universidad Mayor Architecture Faculty is inserted, is a protected patrimonial convent. The new addition had to deal with patrimonial restrictions and also with the issue of a lack of public spaces on the faculty where major activities could be realized. For this purpose, a team of students from different levels and tutoring teachers were assigned to produce a feasible proposal in short time. After a lot of debate the solution aimed to deal with the

Santiago, Chile

old building by placing most of the program underground leading to a public square at ground level, articulated by an exhibition room and an underground patio. The main materials, corten steel and travertine, were selected as a neutral way to deal with the old building materials, wood and adobe. This real life exercise was a great opportunity to relate to team work and deal with many interests of teachers, clients and students, plus the chance to see the construction process on a daily basis.

Project Architecture Faculty AuditoriumProgram Lecture Auditorium, Exhibition, SquareLocation Santiago, ChileSize 830 m2

Project Year 2005Completion Year 2009Client Universidad MayorArchitects Antonio Polidura, Iñaki VolanteCollaboration Team Pablo Saric, Cristian Winckler, Marco Polidura, Andrea Alfaro, Trinidad Monardes, Maria Paz Cabrera, Diego Salinas, Miguel OrtizMain Materials Concrete, Corten Steel, TravertineType Comission

Black HouseSantiago, Chile

Located in the hills that surround the capital, the Black House deals with a complex irregular shaped declining plot. The collaboration on the design and process of the house included many study models and detailing to make decisions on the house shape and tones to choose the appropriate materials. The final project is a

black stone monolith that lies down in a socle constructed with the stone from a nearby quarry. Its shape responds to the site’s regulations, while keeping the facades blinded on the areas where the sun hits the most or where future houses will be built, maintaining the views towards the valley.

Project Black HouseProgram House Location Colina, ChilePlot Size 950 m2

Size 260 m2

Project Year 2005Completion Year 2007Architects Antonio Polidura, Marco PoliduraCollaborators Nicolás Quezada, Miguel Ortiz Main Materials Stone, Wood, ConcreteType Comission

Exhibition at the XXVI Architecture Biennale of Chile

Architecture Portfolio Miguel Ortiz Figueroa Contact Mail miseof@gmail.com Phone 0031631500924 (NL) 0056982323105 (CL)