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.
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."
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