Foco

Appropriation and translation of a glossary

Inserted in the qualified and consolidated structure of the Parque Residencial da Boavista of 1959 by the architects Agostinho Ricca, João Serôdio and José Carlos Magalhães Carneiro, the design idea requires the appropriation and formal abstraction of the single-family house existing in the plot. From the interpretation and translation of an existing glossary, a semiotic and linguistic metamorphosis is generated through polyominos that invade a three-dimensional field, regulated and organized on an orthogonal board and rationally imposed on the perimeter irregularly. Diagonal mechanisms on the horizontal and vertical axis create a movement that animates the landscape. The subtractions and volumetric variations contradict the idea of repetition and association inherent in these linked and condensed structures.

The rooms, usually with two floors and occasionally with three, rest on the podium of common spaces. In the upper level, the variety and number of rooms of the typologies creates a cut and sort of multifaceted landscape. The two halves described in the uses validate different languages and material images, denser and more horizontal on the lower part and less dense and vertical on the upper part. The aligned and projected podium, in a continuous gesture, produces balconies and terraces associated with the volumes that, recessed, are released in the top and vertically. The perspective generated by the horizontality and linearity of the base contrasts with the edges and planes responsible for the alternation of illuminated and shaded planes, underlined by their material and vertical stereotomy.