Location: Valparaiso, Chile

Year: 2009

Botterfold is an experimental prototype created with a group of graduate students during a Fulbright Fellowship at the Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria in Valparraiso, Chile. The structure explores deployment of catenary vaults created through the aggregation of a variable aperture module which were designed and fabricated through techniques of folding and pinning. The structure is a lightweight freestanding catenary vault at the edge of the Pacific Ocean over the main stair entry into the University. Bathed in the late oceanic sunsets the optical characteristics of the structure create an ephemeral effect of sparkle evoques its neighbor, the sea.

  Project Team:  Inaki Vega, Carlos Castro Gonzalez, & Fernanda Gutierrez