More than just a service provider in the field of Architecture, Engineering and Design, CNLL®, is a company with the firm identity based on the paragons of Creation, Invention and Satisfaction.
Led by Nuno Lacerda Lopes, a professor and avid researcher in the fields of Architecture, Design and Innovation, CNLL® assumes and mirrors his concepts, methodologies, quality criterion, and personal vision of architecture, which places the Man as the pivotal figure within a constructive space, in a surrounding that appeals to the senses and is a conduit to experimentation.
From thoughts to feelings, CNLL®’s Architecture distinguishes itself by designing spaces that interact with people and most of all with their senses, creating moods to suit emotions.
Therefore, our projects are unique and distinctive, never expressing repetitive formulas, because people, desires, places, and the objectives of each project and of each client are, as we are… unique and different.
CNLL Profile
The CNLL architects is a company with over 30 years of experience, founded in 1989 by Nuno Lacerda Lopes, based in Espinho, Portugal. The practice has since expanded to other regions, operating from Porto (Portugal), Angola, Singapure, Brazil and South Africa.
Our staff has a wide experience of working in multi-disciplinary teams on projects in Portugal and abroad and is composed by several architects working together with engineers and a support staff, including 3D visualization artists, model makers, landscape specialists, administrative and secretarial staff.
As experts in diverse areas, we provide full architectural design services and consultancy services during the construction phase, allowing us to be involved in the projects from start to finish. Our design expertise involves not only architectural services, but also includes interior design, urban planning, landscape design, facade design & engineering, computational design & BIM, branding, graphic design and consulting services.
CNLL architects has successfully undertaken and completed over 200 projects around the world.
Nuno Lacerda and CNLL architects works have been exhibited in many cities worldwide, including Singapore in 2013.
CNLL’s method is based on a multidisciplinary way of thinking and working, embed in our core principles and values. We like to combine the knowloge and the know-how we acquired over the 30 years of practice but, most of all, we like to include a big portion of generosity and love in our projects.
Our customized methodology and way of developing projects has been consolidated over 30 years of practice, focusing on people, nature, human interaction, creativity and, somehow, a sense of unique sensuality. Those principles merge directly with our permanent desire to learn and apply new solutions and technologies, allowing us to simultaneously explore the handcraft design supported by hand drawings and the cutting edge digital technology.
As a basis of work for the creation and development of a drawing piece, whatever it may be, I always start with a sense of use and experience, touch and use.
Nuno Lacerda Lopes
Our emphasis at CNLL is to make sure, from the start, that every detail works perfectly. That is why we are always studying, researching and developing new ways of building and designing.
For each project, hundreds of virtual simulations and analysis are made in CNLL, testing proposals and results. This technological approach is softly merged with the design thinking strategies and with hand drawing studies, which represents a singular modus operandi from our studio.
At the same time, we are focused in developing the best construction details to suit both the building and the owner needs. Therefore, our strategy is always very practical, carefully defined and with major attention in terms of technical solutions.
CNLL constantly pursuits new ways to improve materials, methods, systems and technology appliance. For us, every project has a different request and demands a customized strategy, which could challenge our creativity, solutions and individual goals.
We are not driven by trends or ephemeral styles, but by quality, resistance and perpetuity. Each CNLL project has a singular identity, related with all the circumstances surrounding it. The main goal is to provide our friends/clients the quality and result they are expecting from us, designing buildings that could be architectural and urban references.
At the same time, we are focused in developing the best construction details to suit both the building and the owner needs. Therefore, our strategy is always very practical, carefully defined and with major attention in terms of technical solutions.
In CNLL, we systematically explore the growing capacities of computerized technologies, of drawing techniques, of communication approaches and testing solutions.
As we are founding members of the Agency of Development of Portuguese Creative Industries, in CNLL quality is a principle rooted in our core. Therefore, we always perform an analysis concerning the conformity of the adopted solutions, critically analyzed, and made compatible during the project’s elaboration and coordination process, in an ideal of continuous improvement and incentive to evolution: total control over new technologies is a resource we make available for the execution of our projects with the satisfaction and comfort for our “friends”.
We believe that human interaction influences the way we design, build and use spaces. We always try to align and share our ideas with our “friends’” aims, seeking for ambition, courage and, most of all, the harmony that fosters creativity and results.
The intervention of the multidisciplinary team that composes CNLL architects might assume diverse forms and solutions. Both the accumulated experience in this field, through hundreds of projects of all shapes and sizes, typologies and programs, scales and complexities, and the full attention which we have dedicated to quality and flexibility in devising solutions, explain the wide range of our offered services.
CNLL are always looking for rich collaborations to push our thinking and design skills. Clients, users and stakeholders are essential to drive our design process and, frequently, produce unique and exciting solutions.
Through our experience working on complex and customized projects worldwide, our project managers are used at negotiation with multiple headed institutions clients and stakeholders.
The relationship between man and architecture develops far beyond the concepts of use or utensil which many users and architects use to describe, act or perceive the architectural spaces available.
Nuno Lacerda Lopes
We believe that human interaction influences the way we design, build and use spaces. We always try to align and share our ideas with our “friends’” aims, seeking for ambition, courage and, most of all, the harmony that fosters creativity and results.
The intervention of the multidisciplinary team that composes CNLL architects might assume diverse forms and solutions. Both the accumulated experience in this field, through hundreds of projects of all shapes and sizes, typologies and programs, scales and complexities, and the full attention which we have dedicated to quality and flexibility in devising solutions, explain the wide range of our offered services.
CNLL are always looking for rich collaborations to push our thinking and design skills. Clients, users and stakeholders are essential to drive our design process and, frequently, produce unique and exciting solutions.
Through our experience working on complex and customized projects worldwide, our project managers are used at negotiation with multiple headed institutions clients and stakeholders.
The amount of prizes we have been awarded with, nationally and internationally, in Architecture, Design, Engineering and Investigation & Development, for our creative solutions, adaquate and innovative, constitutes a branding image that makes us very proud and that, in a very particular way, has demonstrated the conceptual aligning possessed by CNLL®, as well as our ability to meet the demands, preoccupations and interests of society, offering, more than just a project, our intelligence, our will and our effort in finding solutions… for life!
“The awards are just a natural consequence of the hard work of an architect for whom questioning things is almost as important as breathing. It is from this continuous and permanent questioning that great works are born”
Valdemar Cruz
2020
The Pyros Collection project, an alert for forest fires, won 6 gold and 2 silver medals in the Lusophone Creativity Awards. (FCBLisboa/WWF)
2019
First prize in the competition by invitation “Project for Oceanus Park, with 2nd and 3rd cycle school, sports complex, health center, senior residence, student residence, housing/housing, botanical garden and urban park – Gaia
Third prize in the architecture competition for the Mortuary Chapels of Barrancos – Barrancos
2018
Second prize in the public competition for the design of the general architectural project for the Ferreiras Cemetery, Albufeira City Council.
2017
Third prize in the Competition for the Preliminary Study of an Urban Project “D. Luís da Boavista”, Sete Colinas Real Estate Investment Fund promoted by Essentia Desenvolvimento e Gestão de Projetos, for the recovery of a building and construction of another for housing and commerce with an internal patio with commercial and leisure area, in Lisbon.
2016
Finalist of the Pedagogical Award of Excellence of the University of Porto, edition 2015/2016, with the project Construction 2.0 – new and old subjects in class. It was proposed by the president of the Pedagogical Council of FAUP, professor Rui Braz Afonso, to present the candidature in the field “Digital technologies and new ways of designing architecture”.
2014
First prize in the limited competition of invitations for a senior aparthotel (installation of the Maison de Famille unit), with nine floors, six dedicated to the residence consisting of 145 rooms and two floors dedicated to services and one floor dedicated to leisure with a construction area of 13,500 m2, Espirito Santo Estate, Cabedelo, VN Gaia.
First prize in the limited competition for the building dedicated to a collective room dedicated to a low cost room for rent, with three floors underground and six floors above ground, construction area of 4,305 m2, Invesfundo III – Fundo Especial de Investimento Imobiliário Datado, former “Seca do Bacalhau”, DAG, Jardim Atlântico do Douro, Lot 7, VN Gaia.
First prize in the limited tender for prior qualification for the conversion of an office and workshop building, construction area of 5,329 m2, John Neild & Associados, Ramalde, Porto.
2012
Escola Mouriz – International Architecture Award WA Awards 20 + 10 + X 11th Cycle, promoted by the WA Community, whose goal is to highlight and publish outstanding projects with potential to inspire interesting questions about contemporary architecture.
2007
Honourable Mention, in the Public Competition of Ideas for the Requalification of Golden Rocks, Town Hall of Manteigas.
Second Honourable Mention in the Public Competition of Ideas for the Requalification of the Gold Shipyard and Surroundings, APDL, Porto.
2006
1st Prize Competition limited by previous qualification nº 1/2005, for the Project of Architecture and Engineering of the New Facilities of the Open University of Seixal 1st Phase, Open University, Seixal.
First prize in the public competition / project construction for a water sports support building in Marina do Freixo, Sport Club do Porto.
2005
First Prize in the Public Competition of Architecture of the Project of Remodelling and Rehabilitation of the Baths of S. Lourenço, Municipality of Carrazeda de Ansiães.
Honorable Mention from INH – Municipal Promotion of the Development of 22 spaces, Quinta de Guetim.
2003
Third Prize in the Architecture Public Competition for the Project of Reform of the Elvas Museum of Contemporary Art, Municipality of Elvas.
2002
Honorable Mention, Public Tender for the Preparation of the New Facilities of the Basic Science Services of the Faculty of Medicine and the Faculty of Nutrition and Food Sciences of the University of Porto.
2001
First Prize in the Competition for the Reform Project of the National Auditorium Carlos Alberto, in the area of Porto 2001, European Capital of Culture.
First Prize in the Public Competition of Architecture for the Elaboration of the Detailed Plan of S. Lourenço, Municipality of Carrazeda de Ansiães.
Second Prize from INH – Municipal Promotion of the 174-family house development, Quinta de Paramos.
1998
First Prize in the Public Architecture Competition of Centro Multimeios de Espinho, Espinho City Hall.
First Prize in the Public Architecture Competition for the Urban Arrangement between the streets of Luís de Camões and Marechal Gomes da Costa, Municipality of Carrazeda de Ansiães.
First Prize in the Public Architecture Competition for the Rehabilitation of the Brandão Gomes FACE Factory, Espinho City Hall.
1995
First Prize in the Public Architecture Competition of Centro Espinho Multimeios, Espinho City Hall.
First Prize in the Public Architecture Competition for the Urban Arrangement between Luís de Camões and Marechal Gomes da Costa streets, Municipality of Carrazeda de Ansiães.
First Prize in the Public Architecture Competition for the Rehabilitation of the Brandão Gomes FACE Factory, Espinho City Hall.
1993
Best set design award by the Portuguese Association of Theatre Critics, with the stage space “Mandragora”.
1991
First prize in the public design competition for the new T.L.P. telephone booths
1988
First Prize in the public competition of architecture Complex B – Cine Teatro-Viseu.
A friendly company personality and culture, of open and continuous dialogue with our clients and the society we belong to allows us to advance with greater safety, and with the deep feeling of deserving all the trust and admiration we have been awarded.
“I’m a kind of Nunodependent, be careful, you can become the next one. If I were you I’d drop this catalogue right now, before you get definitively delighted, and start questioning all the decoration of your house. Your furniture doesn’t deserve to be compared to Nuno’s. As you don’t deserve to be compared to Tom Cruise or Claudia Shiffer”
Edson Athayde
Em que podemos ser úteis?
Student Resources
Since we are all constantly learning, we would like to share our knowledge and help every student that comes our way. Usually we try to respond to all individual requests to help with school projects or career guidance.
Meanwhile, we made available several projects from our portfolio for direct download – you can get them in each project page. Works are being constantly updated, so stay tuned!