Rotation and game of experiences. Tower 261 by Just an Architect

07/10/2021. [Amarante] Portugal
metalocus, VALERIA OZUNA

Located in the Portuguese city of Amarante, the architectural firm Just an Architect has designed a residential building that is developed transversally to the terrain, allowing greater use of solar exposure and less need for earthworks as it is located on a plot with frontage at different heights.

To relate to the diverse influences of the surroundings, the project is conceived through the use of the rotation of the floors, taking this displacement to four different heights that result in particular movements and shadows.

Tower 261 by Just an Architect. Photograph by Ivo Tavares Studio.

Tower 261 by Just an Architect. Photograph by Ivo Tavares Studio.

Site plan. Tower 261 by Just an Architect.

Ground floor plan. Tower 261 by Just an Architect.

First floor plan. Tower 261 by Just an Architect.

Second floor. Tower 261 by Just an Architect.

Third floor. Tower 261 by Just an Architect.

Fourth floor. Tower 261 by Just an Architect.

Northeast elevation. Tower 261 by Just an Architect.

Northwest elevation. Tower 261 by Just an Architect.

Southeast elevation. Tower 261 by Just an Architect.

Southwest elevation. Tower 261 by Just an Architect.

Section. Tower 261 by Just an Architect.

Axonometry. Tower 261 by Just an Architect.

The proposal by Just an Architect follows a clear formal intention of integration into the landscape, the same aspect that is transferred to the design of the different residential typologies that host the housing project.

The ground floor seeks a more direct relationship with the land, assuming a regular base in relation to the street front, on the contrary, the other floors result in a reflection of the various influences of the environment and the dynamism that the project seeks to achieve by creating a set of experiences for the user.

Description of project by Just an Architect

Urbanistically, the plot meets two distinct scales. To the North, a scale of four and five storey buildings, to the South by the intersection of an access road to Rossio Park, after which the scale changes to a two-storey scale and single-family dwelling typology.

So that there are no flat and rigid gables and trying to relate to the various influences of the surroundings, we assume a rotation of the floors taking this displacement to four distinct elevations that cause particular movements and shadows.

This rotation allows for 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 plot describes to the source, starting from that point the twists of the housing body, assuming the body of vertical communications as the aggregating element that closes the street front of a regular shape, but with its visually permeable cladding material, it reveals the development of the building in the remaining elevations.

The proposal is developed transversally to the terrain, allowing a greater use of the sun exposure as well as a lesser need for earth movement.

The form taken is based on an understanding of the place and its surroundings, and the ground floor seeks a more honest relationship with the ground at low level, assuming a regular basis in relation to the street front, and thus allowing that the other floors were reflecting the various influences of the surroundings, thus creating different framing points for each floor and the dwellings, thus giving them a unique and distinctive character, with each dwelling being an element with its own identities and characteristics. This play of volumes not only provokes distinct landscape framings, but also allows for unique outdoor spaces, as this space is always intimately linked to the relationship between the roof on the lower floor and the pavement slab on the upper floor.

In this context, the stairwell and vertical communications play an important role as they define the street front, aggregating all the floors and stabilizing an elevation quite marked by the movement and tensions resulting from these torsions.

The proposal includes a program with 4 apartments typology 2 rooms and two typology 3 rooms. Regarding T2 apartments, all of them draw their circulations inside the floor, thus always leaving the façade area for the rooms, allowing them to be in contact with the landscape and integrating it in all rooms as part of the decoration.

The same concept of landscape integration was transposed to the T3 typology, in which case the fact that it occupies the entire floor allows circulation right after the entrance hall of the house to clearly define the most public and most private space of the house, safeguarding this last.

More information

Architects

Just an Architect.

Collaborators

Main Architect.- João Abreu. Collaborators.- João Vasconcelos, Bruno Soares.

Developer

Private.

Area

950.00 sqm.

Dates

2015 - 2020.

Location

Amarante, Portugal.

Photography

Ivo Tavares Studio.

João Abreu. Just an Architect

João Abreu was born in Amarante in 1974. He graduated in Architecture from the Faculty of Architecture and Arts of the Universidade Lusíada do Porto. Between 1996 and 2005 he participated in several projects developed by Atelier de Arquitectura Hugo Silva, Lda.

In 2005, he is part of the founding team of the firm Bárbara Abreu & João Abreu - Arquitectos, Lda. Later in 2007, he formed with other partners the company ProjekXXI S.A. In 2012, he founded his architecture firm JAA | Just An Architect, Lda.

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Rotation and game of experiences. Tower 261 by Just an Architect

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