Calm, discreet, silent, the place didn’t notice her. Arrábida, so close by, is the protagonist of a purpose that it wants to maintain. To frame? It is not necessary. Art doesn’t need a frame, nor a shadow, nor an excess of light… it just needs to exist.

It is about the place that this bridge speaks to us, of its vegetal and mineral escarpments, on one side the houses over the river where there is no space to rest a pillar, just keep the scales and relationships, the paths, the romantic of a route that it connects us and makes the city; on the other side, the plant that preserves the memory of the landscape that it is important to keep.

The bridge wants to be a result and not an experience, in Porto there is no hesitation… it is the past and the future, time and its awareness that lead to a solution: the purpose only fulfills the desire for intelligence that the work justifies, without any presumption or vassalage… but aware of the place and time that defines and marks us!

Everything already exists in this place. Even bridges that connect and separate us, colleges and shopping centers, intense traffic and paths of passion, atavism and futurism, contradictions… shadows of trees and breaks, sunsets and morning fogs, river waters and sea tides, watercolors of the Cross and abstractions by Ângelo, texts by Agustina in plans by Oliveira and, from above, Cardoso, Eiffel and so many others assure that heritage is all of this, respect and with identity, a continuum… matter for creation, a matter for humanity.

So the design was made.

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.

The land with 2.311,00 sq.m, is inserted in a predominantly residential area of single-family houses with garden, in the Union of Parishes of São Mamede de Infesta and Senhora da Hora, Municipality of Matosinhos.

The dwelling of typology T4, will have an implantation area of 555,00 sq.m and a total useful area of construction of 525,00 sq.m. The gross construction area will be 628.00 sq.m.

Regarding the remoteness it is important to mention that the implantation follows the alignment of the remaining constructions in the street. The exterior wall which is the boundary of the property and which constitutes the urban front to the street, will be new, plastered and painted white, guaranteeing the necessary entrances for housing and parking.

O colégio desenvolve-se segundo um mote de escola no parque, de simbiose com a natureza e organiza-se segundo vários blocos com espaços exteriores interstícios, tornando clara a separação por ciclos e funções. Organizado em três pisos, distribui-se segundo quatro volumes transversais, conectados a um volume longitudinal.

Os dois volumes a Sul, próximos do átrio, destinam-se ao segundo ciclo; os dois a Norte ao terceiro ciclo; por fim, no rés-do-chão do volume Este organizam-se as zonas de refeitório, cozinha, secretaria, salas de docentes, enquanto no piso superior estão localizadas as salas de aula do secundário. O Piso -1 é tratado como o piso de uso geral, com salas de aula especializadas – laboratórios, salas de desenho e oficinas – auditório e, por fim, a livraria e biblioteca.

A entrada é feita através do ponto de ligação entre os volumes Sul e Este. A partir deste espaço, todas as funções são organizadas ao longo de um importante eixo longitudinal, marcado pelo volume Este, onde se organizam todas as zonas comuns e a partir do qual é feita a distribuição para os diferentes ciclos. Um segundo eixo longitudinal liga os volumes transversais, através de um corredor envidraçado.

The aim of the intervention is to create a space, seen and designed as a whole with different uses, which creates a strong dynamic and at the same time welcomes a range of services capable of attracting new visitors to the site, making the project and the investment more consistent and sustainable. Thus, the project refers to the creation of the Oceanus Park, which includes the expansion of the Oceanus College, with boarding school and senior residence, sports complex, single-family houses, biological park, urban park with restaurant and public parking. The project is launched with the motto of integration and exploitation of the natural landscape, the solution is integrated in the park.

“Perception and respect for the environment will help to find the balance in the cosmos that embraces us, so that we learn to be happy”.

The programme is divided in a very clear way: At the upper level, the residence and the houses have access to Rio do Paço Street from a new road; the school, implanted in the place where the topography is more stable, with a biological park and vegetable gardens under the stream; the sports complex at the lower level, which serves as a “kneecap” between Rio do Paço Street and the school; and, finally, the urban park, for community use, where walkways, belvedere and rest areas are proposed, as well as a restaurant.

We were thinking of an open space of contrasts, in a hybrid and perhaps contradictory process, where theatre, cinema, conferences, readings, exhibitions and installations could be some of the components of a more universal and heterogeneous cultural language which we would like to view as the concept for the project behind the work, in spite of… the politics, the crises, the good and the bad will or in other words the constraints that some projects, and this one in particular, go through.

So we said: “Already very constrained by a tight budget combined with an ever present idea of restoring and preserving some memory imposed by this auditorium, the solution required some inventiveness from the outset. The project soon sought to convey an idea of culture, meeting and experimentation, and consequently, tried to resolve a number of needs that ensured an improvement of spatial and technical conditions. This would encourage the accommodation and creation of various modes of expression, mirroring the range of values of communication and knowing that modern life has produced.” 

Today, everything seems to be closer to the initial idea. Porto built a Theatre. Its own.