GLCS arquitectos translated dual programmatical demands into a distinctive curved-and-rectangular building.

In classic philosophy, beauty exists only because we have a notion of ugliness, curves are understood in contrast with straight lines, enclosure as the opposite of openness, and so on. The Refer Operational Command Centre in Lisbon is a building of such contrasts. It houses the operational department of the company that manages the Portuguese railway infrastructure and is located near the urban railway station of Braço de Prata. This undeveloped area lies between railway lines, the river and former industrial buildings.
According to GLCS Arquitectos, the building’s designers, the starting point for the project was „the need to articulate both the technical and functional aspects of the programme and to integrate them in the finished building“. The given location was a triangular plot adjacent to the station. This new building, part of the „Refer Campus“, is destined to house all rail traffic control systems relating to train movements in the centre of the country. The technical complexity of this task was a key factor in the design of the building’s layout, especially the Command Room where the operators work with visualization instruments.

GLCS Arquitectos, a small Porto-based studio, have tried to establish a balance between an artistic approach and practical solutions. They designed the building as a composition of curved and straight volumes, both four storeys high and arranged around a central space containing stairs and elevators. The curved volume provided the ideal layout for the command centre’s operations. These require optimal light and heat control, which is ensured by the facade’s opacity. The horizontally displaced semi-circles of the curved body create voids that allow controlled, indirect sunlight to penetrate in the building, giving only a subdued reflection of the conditions outside.

In contrast to the closed character of the curved wing, the rectangular glass volume provides a good interior en­vironment for ordinary activities – entrance and reception, amenities like washrooms, technical installations and horizontal and vertical circulation. This block works with different degrees of transparency, with vertical solar control blades covered with acrylic on both sides. This allows two-way glimpses of the railway station outside and control room inside. The louvres on the west-facing facades are painted black to block the entrance of sunlight. On the north they have a mirror coating that reflects a fragmented image of the trains and the station.
The building provides a good response to the duality of the programme by translating it into two completely different bodies – bright and dark, curved and straight, closed and open. Like life itself, in the end it’s always a question of balancing opposites.

A10, Do., 2008.05.15

Responding to a desire for freedom in built space, a.S* built a family of blocks with different personalities.

Looking back at recent history, we could say 1998 was a good year for Portugal. Lisbon Expo98 was a successful model for a world exhibition in combination with urban renewal. Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature, demonstrating the quality of Portuguese literature to the world. Economic growth was strong and EU funds were proving a blessing for a still emerging economy. There were also many architectural competitions around this time and, to top it all off, the Oporto School graduated a clutch of unusually innovative architects. Between 1997 and 1999 this group of young, unknown architects won four competitions in a row in the Azores, making a generational statement about a new approach to architectural design in Portugal.

1998 was a good year for a.S*. Their Laranjeiras University Residence Complex is one of the projects that brought optimism to Portuguese architecture, then dominated by boring „critical regionalism“. Its mixture of Dutch-style interdisciplinary design and a pop culture-inspired method became a turning point in architectural design in Portugal.

The site of this project which would „turn out to be an opportunity to create an urban structure that could be a guide for future interventions“ was on the outskirts of Ponta Delgada in S.Miguel, Azores, between an old industrial zone and a former agricultural area turned homogeneous suburb. The brief called for accommodation for 300 students. The architects began with a playful confrontation between the buildings and the landscape, developing a variety of abstract typologies that eventually matured into a set of buildings with distinct personalities.

Landscape became the central element of the design strategy, acquiring its public dimension between the blocks. The various functions were grouped according to their relative importance in the overall project and their potential as a stage for public activities. The „Car Parking Strip“ and „Urban Stroll Strip“ are located parallel to the road as connectors for inhabitants and passers-by, while the „Green Strip“ establishes the visual interface with the interior of the complex. The „Central Park Strip“ organizes circulation within the complex and connects buildings, while the „Events Strip“ contains supporting functions such as an orange grove, playing field, garden and lovers’ labyrinth, bicycle park and, at the end, the „Canada“ (a rural path) and „Meadow Strip“, an enormous multi-purpose green field.

The complex consists of four separate longitudinal blocks laid parallel between the landscape strips and perpendicular to the main access to Ponta Delgada. A fifth block acts as the main entrance to the complex and contains a cafetaria and canteen, a belvedere and a solarium and the students’ common room. This last building is in fact an extension of the landscape and public space. The blocks develop as variations on the minimum unit, a double room. On the south side there are full-height windows opening on to the rooms’ outdoor space; access to the units is from the north side. The room interiors are also organized in parallel zones: entrance, study, bathroom, bedroom. The bathroom zone contains a bookshelf and a closet the doors of which can be used to divide the space and to provide a measure of privacy to the sleeping area.

The four buildings are obviously related but also different as a result of slight variations – the addition of verandas, different floor levels, et cetera – and their relationship to the surrounding landscape. The southern block is the „Fearless Building“ because it faces all the people coming from the city centre. The second one is simply „Building 2“ while the block closest to the sports area is the „Sporting Building“ and the largest block is the „Solid Building“. The aptly named „Central Building“ is in the centre of the residential blocks and the landscape strips. Inside the blocks, circulation, whether vertical, horizontal or oblique, is on the north side. Students are allowed to choose the block (=personality) and the room (=view) they want to live in.

As the architects said in a recent interview, „There is a desire for freedom that evidences itself in both the work pro­cess and in the built space. It’s not only about use, but also, maybe even more, about behaviour.“ It is precisely their innovation, creativity and professional behaviour that makes a.S* a reference point for young architects in Portugal.

A10, Mi., 2008.04.16

Promontório’s river aquarium is helping to launch the local tourist economy in the Alentejo region.

When as children we first draw a house, the most common shape is a triangle on top of a box, with a door, window and chimney, and a few trees around it. And perhaps, to complete the picture, a happy family. A house surrounded by nature is a universal archetype of tranquillity and happiness. And Alentejo, a region in southern Portugal, may well be an ideal location for such archetypical happiness.

The traditional boxy house with a pitched roof is one architectural shape that everyone can design and build with confidence. Alentejo buildings, as revealed in a Portuguese survey of traditional architecture, follow this predisposition for a simple, recognizable shape, and the undulating landscape of the region is dotted with specimens of this architectural type.

A farming region that is under pressure from global primary producers, Alentejo is urgently engaged in switching from an agrarian economy to eco-tourism and leisure. With this in mind, the municipality of Mora, in the northern part of Alentejo, is investing in infrastructure aimed at consolidating this new direction in an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable manner.

One such venture is located in the Gameiro Ecological Park, an area with a river beach, a nautical club, picnic areas and a camp site. The landscape, with its mix of cork and olive trees, is typical of this region. In 2004, the municipality launched a design-and-build competition for an aquarium to showcase the biodiversity of the Iberian river, from the head waters to the mouth. Lisbon-based Promontório architects were the winners.

The site is a natural basin formed by the confluence of two small rivers, an ideal location for an explor­ation of the theme of running water. The climate here is hot – very hot. It has one of the highest numbers of sunny days per year in Europe and traditional architecture recognized that cooling and shading is the key to comfortable living conditions. The aquarium project addresses this fact in a striking way: a compact white volume with a single pitched roof made up of a sequence of precast concrete trusses spanning 33 metres between supports. The profile? Indeed, it is an oversized interpretation of the traditional whitewashed architecture known locally as „Montes Alentejanos“. The sequence of concrete ribs is the perfect strategy for sun protection and cross ventilation of the interior which is made up of a series of closed boxes containing the aquarium programme. In order to regulate the interior environment – light, humidity, temperature – and to protect the aquatic specimens, the boxes have windows on only one side.

Reception, ticket counter, shop, cafeteria, temporary exhibition space, documentation centre, research and education, live exhibits, multimedia and a small auditorium – are all lined up beneath the protective roof. The aquarium is like any exhibition space of this kind: dark for the sake of the exhibits, clearly laid out in order to educate. At the rear, a bridge takes the exhibition route outside to where a lake acts as a natural display case for local flora and fauna. A winding path takes visitors back inside the aquarium.

There was no need for big gestures here, so Promontório delivered a project that is compact, simple and clear while still managing to accommodate a complex programme. From a distance, it seems like just another big house in the countryside.

A10, Fr., 2008.02.15

Is the Gruta das Torres Centre, designed by architects SAMI the new gateway to Atlantis?

The existence of the „Lost City“ of Atlantis has never been confirmed. It was first mentioned by the Greek philosopher Plato who related the legend of a great civilization engulfed by the ocean after an earthquake around 9550 BC. According to Greek mythology, when the gods divided up the earth, Atlantis fell to Poseidon, the god of the sea. He fell in love with the beautiful mortal girl Cleito. She gave birth to Atlas, who later gave his name to this civilization.

If we are to believe Plato, Atlantis was situated somewhere between Europe, North Africa and Central America, exactly where today we find the Canary Islands, the Madeiras and the Azores. These islands are located above the Atlantic Ridge, one of the world’s most seismically unstable regions. This is the mythically charged setting for the Gruta das Torres Centre. Among the Azores, a mainly volcanic archipelago, is Pico Island, the second biggest of the central group and the youngest (only 300,000 years old). Its youth and volcanic origins are the reason that this island has the biggest number of volcanic caves in the Azores. The Gruta das Torres was discovered in 1990. It is located in Criação Velha and at 5150 metres long and 17 metres high, the biggest cave. Entering the cave is a magical moment. A natural skylight – the result of a ceiling collapse – affirms nature as the forceful agent in this unique landscape.

When the regional authorities decided to open the Gruta das Torres as a tourist attraction, they commissioned architects Inês Vieira da Silva and Miguel Vieira to build a Visitors’ Centre to inform and support the tourists and at the same protect the fragile skylight.

The architects were faced with an unusual brief: the site was in the middle of nowhere; their principal reference was underground; the building, which would only be used regularly during the summer months, had to be vandal-proof and, because of financial constraints, relatively inexpensive. Perhaps because of these preconditions, the project revealed itself in a simple way. The architects came up with two main elements: a circular sweep and a linear spatial organization – a sequence of programmatic spaces that prepare visitors for the natural spectacle below.

Inês and Miguel explain their approach to architecture as follows: „We try to understand the logic of traditional construction, its application, scale and proportions, in an effort to re-use it in a contemporary and integrated way. In the presence of a strong landscape like this, we aimed for the integration of the building, never refusing to design it as the architectural shape it is.“

Arriving at the Visitors’ Centre of Gruta das Torres, after a long ride through the blue, black and green landscape on Pico Island, one finds a patio acting as buffer between the vast natural scenery and the protected interior of the centre. One passes through a waiting room, before attending a short and clear briefing in the auditorium, where visitors are equipped with helmets and headlamps for their journey into the cave. Once outside, they descend a solid rock staircase, leading through a lava tube along a 40 m walkway above the untouched rock slides. Visitors are allowed no more than 200 metres inside the cave, getting only a small taste of the magnificent interior and the potential of unvisited spaces. They return to the waiting room via an external ramp that keeps arriving and departing flows separate.

The construction is a reinterpretation of local building techniques. The „currais de figueira“ structures („fig tree walls“) on Pico island have been recognized as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Once built to protect vineyard cultures from wind and seawater damage, here it naturally became the south facade of the building. Originally about 1.80 metres high, the stone wall has been extended into a 3.5 metre-high enclosure. The openweave structure allows light to infiltrate the entire building, simultaneously avoiding the necessity for windows or any other kind of apertures.

Many centuries after the Plato story, Belgian comic strip hero Professor Mortimer was holidaying in the Azores. While exploring the „Hole of the Devil“, he finds an unknown metal with strange radioactive and luminescent properties, probably the legendary Orichalcum mentioned in Plato’s story. He calls his friend Blake to join him. Suddenly, a strange flying machine speeds crosses the sky, disappearing into the dark night. Curious, they decide to look for it and descend into the cave, finding there the lost city of Atlantis.

A10, So., 2006.05.21