El Camion Restaurant designed by LLONA + ZAMORA arquitectos + Fernando Mosquera, On the Panamerican Highway, nineteen kilometers south of Lima, there is a mandatory rest stop for truck drivers, which include a gas station, rest areas, and food services. EL CAMION is located on one of the corners of this rest stop, in an area of 22.5 x 10m, where it is unfeasible to park. Surrounded by trucks, with constant movement, there is always a new landscape. The restaurant is locked up between trucks; hence the project looked for the creation of an ?interior?, providing patios in which truck drivers could rest after extended working hours.
Photography: Michelle Llona R
The project proposes the main volume of 20 x 2.5m and 6m in height, that achieves the desired intimacy while establishing a formal dialogue with the surrounding elements. A big, yet light container emerges within the rest of the trucks in the parking lot. This main element configures the image of EL CAMION: a wickerwork box that rises over the trucks, visible from the highway. The restaurant´s interior is organized through a sequence of enclosed smaller volumes, interspersed by voids: toilets, patio, an enclosed dining hall (yet to be built), patio, and kitchen. Photography: Michelle Llona R
The materiality distinguishes two systems. First, a system of reinforced masonry painted white for the smaller volumes. Second, a system of Guayaquil cane for the container volume. The box rises up to 6 meters, using the maximum l...