HLPS: Valparaíso cultural park

The Chilean architecture studio repurposes a former prison structure, transforming a site of reclusion into an integrated, open space amidst the hills of Valparaíso.

Chilean architecture studio HLPS Arquitectos has designed the Valparaíso cultural park, repurposing a former prison structure in the hills of Valparaíso, in central Chile. The architects' fundamental challenge was to transform a site of reclusion into an integrated, open space. This was achieved so through the identification and intervention at four different levels in the project.

Firstly, HLPS cleared most adjacent construction which over the years had grown around the prison, leaving only the prison gallery building, the former entrance building, and a historical Spanish powder keg room, alongside the main horizontal space of the prison. Specific landscape intervention, with the planting of trees such as jacarandás, magnolias, and palms, created new pockets of green.
HLPS, Parque Cultural Valparaíso
HLPS Arquitectos, Valparaíso cultural park, Valparaíso, Chile 2011
Secondly, the architects removed all traces of guard walkways, shelters and hand-railings, transforming the large concrete walls of the prison complex into an "abstraction" which evokes the idea of a cloister. These walls open to specific views of the surrounding hills and seas, opening up previously closed-off spaces. To help this goal, HLPS also created a promenade around the park, which relates to neighbouring pre-existing walkways.

Finally, the architects determined the park should be kept to its maximum capacities, creating as much public space as possible. This way, a series of trestle structure rises over the park, housing cultural initiatives on their upper floors, and allowing for public space to exist beneath them. This way, the architects point out, "an urban multipurpose plateau" is determined, "establishing a new relation with the lower park and Valparaíso's harbour, geographic context and the sea."

HLPS, Parque Cultural Valparaíso
HLPS Arquitectos, Valparaíso cultural park, Valparaíso, Chile 2011
HLPS Arquitectos, Valparaíso cultural park
HLPS Arquitectos, Valparaíso cultural park, Valparaíso, Chile 2011
HLPS Arquitectos, Valparaíso cultural park
HLPS Arquitectos, Valparaíso cultural park, Valparaíso, Chile 2011
HLPS: Parque Cultural Valparaíso
Architects
: HLPS Arquitectos Jonathan Holmes, Martin Labbé, Carolina Portugueis, Osvaldo Spichiger
Collaborators
: Nicolás Frienkel, Jorge Siviero, Carolina Moore
Structural engineering
: Luis Soler y Asociados
Contractor
: Constructora Bravo Izquierdo Ltda
Acoustics
: Carla Badani
Theatre acoustics
: Constellation. Meyer Sound
Lighting
: Limarí Lighting Design Ltda
Materials
: concrete, stone
Administrative/education building area
: 2,547 square metres
Diffusion building area
: 6,164 square metres
Completion
: 2011
Landscape architecture
: Jonathan Holmes, Martin Labbé, Carolina Portugueis, Osvaldo Spichiger (HLPS Arquitectos) + Paulina Courard
Collaborators
: Ximena Nazal
Garden
: Ximena Nazal / Pamela Marchant
Lighting
: Limarí Lighting Design Ltda..
Contractor
: Jaime Stitic.
Irrigation project
: Lisandro Salina
Photography
: Cristobal Palma

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