Dynamobel furnishes Banco de Chile headquarters in Santiago de Chile.
Banco de Chile is one of the most important financial institutions in Chile. It provides a broad client base with a complete range of financial products and services through its network of ATMs and branch offices located throughout most of the country, and its electronic distribution channels.
Dynamobel, in collaboration with the S3 architectural studio (Schmidt Arquitectos Asociados), helped furnish the bank’s headquarters in Paseo Ahumada, a busy pedestrian precinct in downtown Santiago de Chile regarded as the commercial core of the city centre.
Our partnership came into being as part of a major project to fully refurbish the interiors of the set of historical buildings, including an old theatre dating from 1924, which now house Banco de Chile’s headquarters. Due to their different heights and the problems involved in moving from one building to another, the complexity of the site represented one of the biggest challenges when it came to carrying out the project.
The refurbishment consisted of creating open-plan areas and baring the ceilings to expose the building’s guts to lend it a spacious, modern, industrial feel. All the vertical faces were torn down and the surface area with enclosed offices was reduced by 80%. The remaining areas, consisting of office space and conference rooms, were distributed using glazed partitioning with translucent vinyl interlayers, which gives them a feeling of intimacy, while also illuminating the entire floor.
Both the bank’s own architectural studio and S3 agreed that Dynamobel’s products helped integrate the open-plan work areas, offices and conference rooms. The solution selected was based on the C-Series and included the Clic desk and Cube filing systems.
Furniture suitable for the job was chosen for the open-plan areas in the form of functional, minimalist bench desks for 6, 8 and 12 work stations with a fully accessible, concealed cable management system within the reach of users which was specially designed to meet the bank’s requirements.
The Slat C (operator chair) and Slat 4C (visitor chair), both with mesh backrests and finished in black (upholstery and frame), were chosen to meet office seating requirements.
The end result is a set of elements (vertical and horizontal faces, furniture and seating) which share clean straight lines in neutral colours from the white to grey range, contributing to a bright environment with a welcoming, peaceful working atmosphere, accentuated by surface finishes in natural wood.