MAR DO ORIENTE
Aires Mateus
CATEGORY
Office Buildings
LOCATION
Lisbon, Portugal
ARCHITECTS
Aires Mateus
AREA
7200.0 m2
YEAR
2008
PHOTOGRAPHS
Fernando Guerra | FG+SG
Text description provided by architect.
Over a platform, eight volumes are built, in which the significance of each volume is reinforced by repetition, not equal, but identical. The buildings have the same distance between themselves, repeating their external image, their height and width. The variation happens in their length and thus footprint on the platform.
As abstract objects the volumes are on the border of the platform, releasing a vast area in the centre. In the core of the intervention, the platform slab is cut to illuminate the internal plaza, one level below, from where all the accesses to offices are located.
The square promotes the connection of all four surrounding streets. The façades expose a constant module, defined not by a materiality (concrete or stone) but by an immateriality: light alignments that cross from the gallery wall to the ceiling.
