30/08/2026
A look into our vision for the El Chico National Park Visitor Center. This project entails the rehabilitation and adaptation of three existing structures on the site, enabling new spaces for exhibition, gathering, and research. The design departs from a premise of minimal intervention, selectively altering the existing to amplify each structure’s spatial and technical capabilities.
The main building reuses and expands the original structure, reimagined as a new museum for the park. A new gallery and café are attached to the existing building by extending the current gabled roof with a composite steel-and-mass-timber structure. Under the cover of the 1970s concrete slab roof, a new “forest gallery” will allow the site’s natural vegetation to invade the interior, with the only interventions being the removal of the existing glass walls and the creation of a semicircular perforation in the roof that will bring light into the lush interior garden. The remainder of the structure houses a forestry research center, with additional lab and meeting spaces created by adding new roof patches that sit atop the existing solid slab.
A collaboration between operadora. and FAIL
operadora. © 2026 FAIL
087 El Chico National Park Visitor Center, ongoing.
Project team: Edgar Rodriguez, Pablo Rojas Böttner, Catalina Briones, Hsin Yuan Hung, Yida Li.
Renderings by labs.jpg ʟᴀʙsᴶᴾᴳ
© operadora. and FAIL, 2026.
