a.s* - Atelier de Santos was established in 1997 by
Célia Gomes and Pedro Machado Costa. It is a collective of architects
based in Lisbon. Their Central Library of the Azores University was nominated for the Mies
van der Rohe European Architecture Prize and selected for the FAD
Architecture Prize in 2004. Their work has been widely published and
exhibited both locally and internationally, namely in the Venice
Architecture Biennale, in the Iberoamercian Biennale of Architecture
and Urbanism and at the Architectural Association in London.
Portugal is still a traditional
and conservative European country. So despite the many respected and
well-known professionals working there, it’s no wonder that
Portuguese architecture is not innovative and
young architects barely have the opportunity or
the will to prove their real value. One either follows a traditional approach as taught in universities
or one looks for global influences and starts exploring his own route out . Pedro Machado Costa
and Célia Gomes from
a.s* belong to this
last group of architects.
The University Residence is an important
part of this professional search. A competition
was held in 1998 but it took almost nine
years to develop the project on São Miguel island
in Azores. It is an industrial area in
the periphery of the capital, Ponta Delgada,
something between old industrial premises
and low-quality suburban housing.
The project is the result of a balanced approach
between building and landscape. The client requirements (accommodation for 300 students
and related facilities) meant allocating functions around
four buildings that hover above a sequence of
park strips with different personalities. The Car Parking Strip and the Urban Stroll Strip are connectors;
the Green Strip is the visual frontier;
the Central Park Strip manages internal distribution;
and the Events Strip is the place where
things happen: orange grove, playing field, garden
and lovers’ labyrinth, cycle rack and in the
end, the rural path also known as Canada and
the Meadow Strip, a multi-purpose green area.
This combination of the dream and the realism is indeed something new in Portugal. It represents
a fresh approach to architecture there, where tradition is fused with contemporaneity. Without
doubt, the architecture of a.s* continuously
explores new avenues for professional practice,
setting a turning point with this project for the
younger generation of Portuguese architects.
Generally, the Universidade dos Açores has shown itself to be one of the
local young architects' best clients: In the late '90s, with financial
help from the European Union, the school administration called for a
series of international competitions to design the building complexes
of its growing campuses. Unconsciously, the administration's ground breaking ambitions led it to select emerging practitioners to
realize the work, leading to a campus that is fast becoming a showcase of modern Portuguese architecture.
Heat wave 
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