Uploaded on 2016-08-05 by María Piedad Aguirre

The photograph was taken by me in 2014 and shows the reconstruction of houses by a large fire that occurred in Valparaiso, Chile and left more than 2,000 families homeless. Mainly, the housing reconstruction was made with wood frame construction system, for being faster, cheaper and with less labor. It can be seen in the photograph; wood frames, OSB boards, zinc cladding and fibre cement. While the raw materials are Chilean (wood, steel, cement, zinc etc), the technology and the construction process are from foreign companies. The income of OSB to Chile was from an American-Chilean partnership with the US company Louisiana Pacific (USA), which decided in 2001 to settle in Chile, and to date is the main producing for the domestic market and exports to Peru and Colombia. Fiber cement: Pizarreño (Chile) is associated in 1939 with the Belgian group Etex Group S.A. that brings experience and technology, in 2000 the Australian company James Hardie Ltd. reaching in its first seven months of operation a market share of 18%.