From Just an Architect an apartment tower that develops in strong relationship with the surrounding environment in Amarante in Portugal.
Urbanistically, the plot meets two distinct scales. To the north, a staircase of four and five floors, to the south from the intersection of an access road to the Rossio Park, after which the staircase changes to a two-family staircase and a single-family housing type. So that there are no flat and rigid gables and trying to relate to the various influences of the surrounding environment, we assume a rotation of the floors bringing this shift to four distinct elevations that cause particular movements and shadows.
This rotation allows a game of different experiences in which the orientations of the apartments are different and with different points of view in contact with the surrounding landscape. The development of the building follows on the ground floor the angle that the lot describes at the source, starting from that point the twists of the housing body, assuming the body of vertical communications as a unifying element that closes the street front in a regular shape, but with the its visually permeable cladding material reveals the development of the building in the remaining elevations.
The proposal develops transversely to the ground, allowing a greater use of solar exposure as well as a lower need for earthmoving. The assumed form is based on an understanding of the place and its surroundings, and the ground floor seeks a more honest relationship with the ground at a low level, assuming a regular basis with respect to the street front, and thus allowing the other floors to be reflecting the different influences of the surrounding environment, thus creating different framing points for each floor and the homes, thus giving them a unique and distinctive character, with each home being an element with its own identities and characteristics. This interplay of volumes not only causes distinct landscape shots, but also allows for unique outdoor spaces, since this space is always intimately linked to the relationship between the roof on the lower floor and the flooring on the upper floor.
In this context, the stairwell and the vertical communications play an important role as they define the street front, aggregating all the floors and stabilizing an elevation marked by the movement and tensions deriving from these twists.
The proposal includes a program with 4 apartments type 2 rooms and two types 3 rooms. As for the T2 apartments, they all draw their circulation within the floor, thus always leaving the facade area for the rooms, allowing them to be in contact with the landscape and integrating it into all environments as part of the decoration.
The same concept of landscape integration has been transposed into the T3 typology, in which case the fact of occupying the entire floor allows circulation immediately after the entrance hall of the house to clearly define the most public and most private space of the house, safeguarding this Last.
project info
Project name: Tower 261
Architecture Office: Just an Architect
Main Architect: Joao Abreu
Website: www.justanarchitect.com
Email: jaa@justanarchitect.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jaa.just.an.architect
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaa.just.an.architect/
Location: Amarante, Portugal.
Year of conclusion: 2020
total area: 950,00 m²
Architectural photographer: Ivo Tavares Studio
Website: www.ivotavares.net
Facebook: www.facebook.com/ivotavaresstudio
Instagram: www.instagram.com/ivotavaresstudio
