The project was the answer to a competition for the construction of 164 apartments destined to rehouse the people from an area of slum housing.

The problems involved with designing a collective housing for this social group raised a series of question that, once recognised, needed to be studied and answered. Factors such as the different ways of inhabiting, the different family core, the several ethnic groups and their respective ingrained patterns of life, all called for a diversified use of space and demanded alternative spaces that should be integrated into the scheme, whilst arriving at a common denominative.

The construction of a collective group of housing in a deprived urban area is capable of raising the environmental standard of the whole locality. The site in question is excellently located near the National Highway 109, surrounded by green areas and with views to the sea. The design demanded care and attention in order to develop a language and a relationship between volumes, worried about not creating “social ghettos” that disadvantage the whole development and through association negate the remaining favourable spaces of the habitation, a threat urban social housing projects have fallen victim to in the past. There was an identified need to build the social housing and accompanying urban spaces with a strong regard of durability, in recognition of the fact that a non-descript act of degradation soon generates more significant decay.

From the morphology and topography of the terrain we can see the apparent (un)organisation of this territory, loaded with different architectures, different units, different times, scales, symbols and organisations.

Now a new building is requested, with new functions with new rationalities and above all with specific objectives to be fulfilled: connecting, rationalizing and phasing seem to be the watchwords for its design and to which we add identity, flexibility and the capacity to associate and transform itself, in the present and in the future. 

The new central building named presents itself as a welcoming and connecting space, an element that structures the existing building giving it a functional, formal and articulating unit with all the different adjacent units and services. It is therefore an essential link in a whole chain of activities and services that integrate the whole of what today the thought of a hospital unit is. To this extent, the building seeks to highlight this variety, presenting itself as something that adapts and transforms, a living cell open to regeneration and permanent alteration, suggesting movement and differentiation.

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Thought of as a large volume that is cut out and partitioned as a house, different spaces, scales, experiences and moments are proposed. The entrance, markedly created by a tear or opening between the volumes, provokes compression that is intensified by a sculpture that accompanies the entire length of the entrance.
Rigorous proportions were at the heart of the design and the decision of the volume for the house. The programme was distributed according to the functional demands, guaranteeing, through the study of light, natural ventilation and circulation, a sequence of interior spaces that are differentiated and adapted to different uses, moments, experiences and sensations. Moreover, there was a special concern with blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior, so that the living rooms, the kitchen and the gym/spa are extended outwards through large glass windows.
The interplay of shadows on the façade, resulting from bringing bodies to the front or moving them to the back, provides a greater plastic richness in the design of the side elevations. A vertical wooden structure ensures the necessary shade, giving a rhythm to the entire east façade and safeguarding indoor privacy.a.

Thought of as a large volume that is cut out and partitioned as a house, different spaces, scales, experiences and moments are proposed. The entrance, markedly created by a tear or opening between the volumes, provokes compression that is intensified by a sculpture that accompanies the entire length of the entrance.
Rigorous proportions were at the heart of the design and the decision of the volume for the house. The programme was distributed according to the functional demands, guaranteeing, through the study of light, natural ventilation and circulation, a sequence of interior spaces that are differentiated and adapted to different uses, moments, experiences and sensations. Moreover, there was a special concern with blurring the boundaries between interior and exterior, so that the living rooms, the kitchen and the gym/spa are extended outwards through large glass windows.
The interplay of shadows on the façade, resulting from bringing bodies to the front or moving them to the back, provides a greater plastic richness in the design of the side elevations. A vertical wooden structure ensures the necessary shade, giving a rhythm to the entire east façade and safeguarding indoor privacy.a.

The MTower stands out as a distinctive mark in the Maputo landscape. Its development was based on a movement and torsion desire, creating a svelte yet emblematic building.

The exterior mesh clothes the building as the capulana (traditional clothing) clothes the Mozambican woman. Aside from the aesthetic value, it has more than one function: it supports the exterior elevation, it provides partial shade to spaces, it permits window bays and outdoor areas to be created, all protected by this permeable mesh. It also allows the natural ventilation of the building, an essential aspect for sustainable building management in this climate. Further attention is given to the adequate lighting of spaces; natural cooling of spaces by using free cooling; shade for the windows provided by the mesh, the reflectance of the glass and the addition of screens and blackouts – ecodesign solutions that support the adequate management of existing resources, thus minimising the impacts and costs associated with the building.

This is a competition project, a singular building, an icon that could mark Maputo’s skyline, communicating Mozambican culture to the world, its traditions and modernity depending upon institutions’ desire and approval.

This school was designed as a playful combination of modules that can be easily adapted to the variations of the terrain and the topography of the place. It develops the concept established in the modular schools project (CEM – Centros Escolares Modulares) and revisits the original objective where the movement, variation and formal complexity of the exterior contrast with the linearity of the interior planes that structure the functional areas.

Given the shape of the terrain, its orientation, sun exposure, accesses and relationship with the urban structure, it was possible to maximise the expression of the interplay between the modules that make up the different spaces of this school. The idea of continual movement created by the paths surrounding the central courtyard seeks to characterise the image of the project and the use of this building.

Here a number of concepts of composition and organisation of space are explored and experimented with. The plane and mass are the basis for constructing volumes, verticality meets horizontality, and the senses of surprise and compression are fostered through the countless spaces that the freely associated modules create.

More than just providing an acritical sense of stability, the project for this school invites both children and adults to continually experiment and confront. This is what truly makes it a place of learning.

This project to rehabilitate and extend the existing school facilities is part of the programme for modernising high schools, managed by Parque Escolar EP.

An analysis of the existing conditions reveals a heavily pre-fabricated pavilion-style school from the 1970s, which is severely run down and which did not seem capable of accommodating the required number of students.

The scattered pavilions, with old and dirty walls, were defined by protected windows conveying the feeling of a war scenario. The commission required the building intervention to permit an estimated 1800 students to be accommodated.

We questioned and tried to understand the context, the place, the people and the students, their secret desires, their joys and sadness, the teachers and those in charge of the school. We discovered immense joy and an irreverent desire to teach even with no conditions, and in any circumstances. We shared the view that a school is not just a building, an organised space, or a sum of values and costs, but a social place where people meet and identities are constructed.

“Spaces for discovery and ease of use, spaces that are open to experimentation and freedom to flow”, they told us. The intention to embrace the four existing pavilions, establishing interior continuity, making connections, building bridges and encouraging circulation within a closed circuit are simply the expression of that wish.

As the project evolved, the school’s entrance was moved to the north, nearer to the urban area, thus creating a different relationship between the school and its surroundings.

More than a new building, the project sought to develop a new interpretation of the teaching space, according to its actors and close to that of its users. Here continuity of the community’s aspirations, integration, adaptation, flexibility, freedom and fluidity are concepts that cannot be detached from this intervention.

O projeto para o centro escolar de Duas Igrejas afigura-se como um subtil jogo de contrastes e de oposições. Se por um lado possui um exterior geométrico em betão aparente, com a frieza e rugosidade próprias deste material, apresenta no interior um espaço depurado, fluido, claro e polido. À linearidade da composição e organização funcional da planta do edifício se contrapõe todo um jogo de volumes que se estruturam alinhados ao longo de um corredor central que lhe empresta unidade e ritmo mas também variedade e surpresa. 

A fachada denuncia uma rigorosa métrica que serviu de base à conceção do projeto, em que as linhas de cofragem no betão encontram-se definidas e demarcadas no alçado como registo de um tempo e de um processo de produção e construção. O interior pontuado por rasgos de luz que separam os secos volumes que compõem as salas de aula desenham um jogo de claro/escuro diferenciador. 

O corredor central revela-se como espinha dorsal, um espaço de circulação e de estar que articula e organiza os diferentes módulos que compõem este edifício, num mundo imaginativo e de brincadeira, mas que ao mesmo tempo procura oferecer valores, conhecimento e aprendizagem. No fundo mais do que formas, projetamos espaços para colocar questões.