Paradoxically, the confinement we have experienced during the current health crisis has also sparked a series of encounters that ignore border limitations. For Estudio Diagonal, an emerging practice that has achieved international recognition for projects like Refugio 3x3, remote work has allowed them to open up to the world and the multiple opportunities it offers without leaving their place of origin. Based in the city of Osorno in southern Chile, the interdisciplinary team led by architect Sebastián Armijo designs and builds a series of works that draw both from the local landscape and its resources and from the architectural influences shaping current global trends.
A critical perspective on the regionalism that dominates local academic discourse, the importance of physical materialization in conceptualizing their work, and the drive to achieve high design standards with minimal resources are some of the recurring themes in their thinking and practice. In the following interview, Sebastián Armijo elaborates on the interests and influences that drive him to develop a variety of projects rooted in the concept of "pragmatic irreducibility."
