Garducho Biological Center / Ventura Trindade Architects

Architect: Ventura Trindade Architects
Location: Mourão, Portugal
Design team: Chiara Ternullo, Nuno Marcos, André Monteiro Rosa, Adelaide Neves, Lourenço van Innis, Filipe Carvalho, Susana Medeiros, Jorge Vicente, Liliana César Rodrigues, Filipe Nunes, Rita Figueiredo, Nélson Rodrigues
Structural Engineering: PRPC – engenheiros, Paulo Cardoso, Pedro Romano com Hugo Veríssimo, Carlos Crespo
Technical Energy: João Mira, Rui Batista
Client: Ceai, Centro de Estudo da Avifauna Iberica, Carla Janeiro, Tiago Ferro
Built area: 545 sqm (gross)
Cost: 675.000 EUROS
Completion: 2009
Maximum height of the building: 6,5 m
Photographs: Courtesy of Ventura Trindade Architects

Courtesy of Ventura Trindade Architects

In a protected area, classified as Natura 2000 Network, the intervention looks for to organize the functional program transforming the three existing buildings in order to allow biggest area for the requested program, with lesser occupation of the ground.

Axon

The buildings acts as elements of support of a structure that is raised above the land and keeps suspended, organizing a set of patios and pathways between the several functional parts, allowing to preserve the ground intact and permeable.

Elevation

The construction is suspended a meter above the more raised quota of the land, defining private patios around the building of the residence and designing and entrance, on the opposite side of the 55 x 27,5 meters rectangle, where the land became lower.

Ground Floor Plan

The center of the set is marked by a bigger patio, which organizes the other buildings, covered exterior spaces and pathways of the station, around it. At the ground, the suspended plans fit long horizontal views of the surrounding landscape.

Plan 01

Beucause of it’s extreme isolation, the station as to remain self-suficient in terms of energy and water supplies, what it is possible due to the photovoltaic panels set in the roofs, and by a deposit that stores the rainwater.