Francisco De Arruda School / José Neves

Francisco De Arruda School / José Neves - GardenFrancisco De Arruda School / José Neves - WindowsFrancisco De Arruda School / José Neves - FacadeFrancisco De Arruda School / José Neves - Windows, ColumnFrancisco De Arruda School / José Neves - More Images+ 18

Text description provided by the architects. It is a project within the “School Modernization Program” sponsored by the Parque Escolar, for a school originally designed by architect José António Pedroso in 1956. The three bodies that constitute the school are situated on the hillside in the continuity of the Faculty of Agronomy fields, overlooking the district of Alcântara.

Francisco De Arruda School / José Neves - Stairs, Handrail
© Laura Castro Caldas & Paulo Cintra

The original building, spread across three platforms pragmatically modelled on the hill, is organized around a central patio and has three bodies each with its own functions - teaching, administration, and covered playground; gym and cafeteria; workshops - linked through covered outdoor galleries. These bodies, with very different shapes, were taken by us as if they had been built over time, making a little city. Our project quietly continues this process.

Francisco De Arruda School / José Neves - Windows, Glass
© Laura Castro Caldas & Paulo Cintra

For the outdoor areas, of unusually generous dimensions, the project underlines the continuity of the vegetation of the fields through new plantations, in order to emphasize the sense of the site as a public garden. The staircase that we designed, opening an existing cul-de-sac to connect the central patio to the old Patio das Caravelas situated on the top platform.

Francisco De Arruda School / José Neves - Stairs, Handrail
© Laura Castro Caldas & Paulo Cintra

As well as the direct connection created between the new library and the sports fields across the covered playground, are both transformations that help to emphasize the sense of the whole as a public garden and profoundly shape the daily living in the school. On the other hand, the original buildings are restored as well as adapted to new needs, through minimum interventions, particularly in the external form and the finishes of the interior spaces.

Francisco De Arruda School / José Neves - Windows, Sink, Countertop, Beam
© Laura Castro Caldas & Paulo Cintra

Finally, three new elements are added:

a) a long two-storey building completes the outline of the original patio. It is discovered after a short path through the garden, as the new school entrance. Designed as a public gallery, meeting and study space, along the courtyard - as a sheltered stoa - this building contains the new library on the ground floor and the new laboratories on the top floor, facing, eastward, the gardens of the school, the neighbouring fields and the city.

1st floor plan

b) the spas are built under the old Pátio das Caravelas between the existing gym and the new covered sports field that is situated in one of the high platforms of the site;

c) the original main atrium, never used as one, is now the atrium of a small multipurpose room, designed as a garden pavilion, which the population of the school calls "magic cube".

2nd floor plan

Given the beauty of the original Francisco de Arruda School situation, once again the clear and direct words of João dos Santos served as a greater stimulus to the project: "What is important in education, first of all, is the natural and aesthetically harmonious environment in which it takes place."

Francisco De Arruda School / José Neves - Image 6 of 23
© Laura Castro Caldas & Paulo Cintra

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Project location

Address:Lisbon, Portugal

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Location to be used only as a reference. It could indicate city/country but not exact address.
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Cite: "Francisco De Arruda School / José Neves" 04 Apr 2012. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/222747/francisco-de-arruda-school-jose-neves> ISSN 0719-8884

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