The VPVC office is a project commissioned to solve the demanding layout for a new bureau of lawyers, located in a single 500 sqm story of a translucent curtain-wall building with a single central circulation core in Santiago. Our proposal resulted the winner in a private competition.

The programme requested contemplated allocating 23 individual lawyer’s offices, 4 secretaries, accountants, interns and an area of services. As it is commonly arranged there are different hierarchies which are depicted by different office sizes. Nonetheless we opted to organise this array towards the external perimeter (natural illumination) and connect every room with the rest of the office by a public continuous aisle, which was designed alongside a 45 metre lineal wood shelve. The built-in quality cabinet contains archives and consultation books, and is fully designed in Lenga, a highly regarded FSC timber from Patagonia. In order to avoid a locked-in feeling common from deep plan layouts, we opted for translucent layers towards the centre, and in every aisle there was an open end reaching the building facade which allows for a continuous relation with the exterior and the pass of the day and light.

The material palette was carefully overseen to avoid the multiple finishings portrayed by the technical units, therefore we limited the colours to the extensive use of Lenga in corridors, specific ceiling areas and some furniture, whereas we used a crispier finishing such as stainless steel and glass as a counterpoint in frames and partition walls.