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Technology School of Barreiro

Barreiros, Portugal
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The site we the school building was designed is located in the suburbs of the city of Barreiro. Rural areas are invaded by recent constructions intersecting gardens and plantations. Given the predominance of housing, without having been planned integration of other functions, this neighborhood is now a suburb with little urban life. The land is however quite interesting: broad, softly inclined and well-related with its configuration - 4m gap in perimeter to north and south - and has, at one end a dense forest of cork and large pine .

There are projects that cause a public reaction even before its existence. And sometimes that's where they find much of their food for thought. This school is an example. The residents of the "neighborhood" were against its construction because they wanted a primary school instead - transferred to another location - but also because they feared the visual impact of a building of large proportions would have, and trees. They decided to count and mark all of them one by one.

The architects aimed for the building an ambiguity. On the one hand it "dissipates" and accepts the prevalence of natural elements, and the other assumes its presence as an artificial element of abstract. This principle is underlined by the constructive choices: big coal-gray block that when sectioned, reveals a white interior.The architecture takes on one end of the building a more topographical, where no way to tell where the start and end and engaging an opposite side to present its lower limit defined by the alignment of the tops of the different bodies of the building.

The building is positioned in the center of the ground, reserved the third north for parking and main entrance, and to the south the woods stop being a localized strip and now stretch around and over the building. The set, stands in a body height of the building - the faculty area - which marks its presence at greater distances and configuring a new city.

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  1. Architect's Website
vanessafralves, July 4th, 2013
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