Stitching and stripping. The heterogeneity of the existing pavilions in the former Valdivia Barracks made it necessary to seek strategies for regrouping, organizing and connecting all its spaces for a new program: a Day Center and Residential Center for dependent people, which had to fit within the existing limits imposed by the strong character of its stone walls.

A Venturian attitude of “this and that”: center and cluster. Gathering and intimacy. A “village square” and “the back-door path.”

Stitching the pre-existing condition through a new piece that settles against and embraces the limit of the pavilions, generating a new centrality that had not existed until then. A “village square,” a common garden onto which all parts of the Day Center can open. But also the stitching together of clustered pieces in a concatenation of relational spaces belonging to the residential center, opening more intimately towards the back garden.

Stripping the pre-existing condition, showing its character bare, revealing all its scars, strata, construction, accumulation of time. Removing its superficial layers to expose the raw stone, in a minimal intervention balanced with the austere and handcrafted character of the Colonization Villages. Stone and lime.

With these attitudes of austerity and minimal means, the new piece inserted into this reality also appears raw. Exposed, stripped concrete, without finishes, yet transparent and open.