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Architects: Arquitectos Aliados
- Area: 23702 ft²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:Fernando Fernandes, Alexander Bogorodskiy
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Lead Architect: Susana Leite
Text description provided by the architects. The - Oporto Anselmo apartment block - is a housing complex with thirty (30) apartments, located in the center of Porto.
Primarily intended for short-term stays, all apartments, even the smaller units, have a balcony (in the upper floors) or a garden patio (in the lower ones).
In addition to the normal characteristics of a collective housing building, common indoor and outdoor living areas, such as a swimming pool/changing room and garden areas, were proposed.
The proposal sought to free a large part of the plot for the creation of garden areas, given that the previous construction (industrial character, in ruins) occupied a significant area. Permeable areas were proposed in the backyard, through patios and garden areas, at different levels. On the parking lot’s roof, a suspended garden is proposed.
The entire volumetry, understood as a compact “mass”, is torn to allow a game of fullness and emptiness, of light and shadow, both on the main façade (east) and on the back façade (west).
These recesses, both facing the street and the patio/garden, accommodate private balconies and natural light entrances for patios.
Formally, the proposal is based on a monolithic language using the least number of materials (concrete) in contrast to steel and wood accents. Thus, both in the design and in the choice of materials, an effort is made to intervene in a simple and clean way.
It was intended for the piece to be a timeless work with various references, whether national or from the rest of Europe. Regardless of the year of the project/construction, the aim is to have the same impact, the same formal and constructive quality, the same warmth in welcoming those who inhabit and attend.
The intended result is a natural willingness to occupy the space, to use it, to participate in its own existence. An austere work of architecture, through its classicist approach to form, volumes, geometry, colors and textures.
