Matosinhos Market Portugal, Quadra, Architect, Arquitetura Portuguesa, Design

Matosinhos Market : Quadra Project

Portuguese Retail Building design by Arquitectos Anónimos, Portugal

30 Sep 2011

Architects: Arquitectos Anónimos

Quadra Project – Center for Innovation and Creativity: rehabilitation of Matosinhos market

Matosinhos Market Building

Project Description

The project aims the rehabilitation of the Matosinhos Market, a building space, characterized by a strongly modernist architecture and a strong light, very white. This is the main “excuse” for the design of a transparent surface, a gradient of colors, a vibrant skin around the preexisting constructive elements – a kind of new contour. The natural light justifies the presence of color and the design of the glass planes deeply rooted in space, but that will gradually come to life and transforms itself as a crystal embedded in the pre-existence.

images : Arquitectos Anónimos ®

The project seeks a consistent relationship with the space and structure that precedes us, emphasizing the strength and relevance of the new intervention, without destroying the identity of the market. Accepting its presence as a theme for the project, with the accidents and the inevitable contingencies of everyday use.

As well as accepting its functionality as traditional market, and developing a new programmatic layout, mixing the market’s commercial retail with new spaces for creative industries related to design and ESAD design school. To serve this needs our architecture must not only communicate, but tell a story. Therefore, to characterize the materiality of this building requires a great willingness for dialogue between the proposed glass color and white tiled walls of the market.

This is the substance of the conceptual project, a membrane that penetrates the existing market and articulates with the original materials through transparencies and colors – inspired by the proximity to maritime court. The glass surfaces gradually acquire opacity in areas that correspond to greater intimacy, particularly in the lounge area and with respect to the QUADRA space.

This substructure aims to generate fluid Privacy dynamics, not completely enclosing the spaces, but integrating the experience and the everyday sounds of the market in the routine of future inhabitants. The spaces in question are places to incubation of creative work, so there are no physical limits that impose distinct barriers relating to the market life. We proposed only two types of flooring:

– The same kind of pavement of the perimeter of the existing building; the overall circulation spaces

– A white floor, which will coat the inside of the new QUADRA areas, enhancing the diffusion of light and thus enhancing the visual efficiency of crystalline surfaces and color

images : Arquitectos Anónimos ®

Matosinhos market rehabilitation – Building Information

Project name: Quadra – Center for Innovation and Creativity: rehabilitation of Matosinhos market
Location: Matosinhos, Portugal
Architecture: Maria Milano and Arquitectos Anónimos ®
Design Team: António Choupina, Inês Gonçalves, Senne Meesters, Vasco Santos, Vitor Rocha
Engineering Consultant: Spren Plan Lda and VA Project Lda
Promoter: Matosinhos Municipality and ESAD (Escola Superior de Artes e Design)

Construction area: 1,200 m2
Project date: 2011
Images and Renders: Arquitectos Anónimos ®

Quadra – Matosinhos market images / information from Arquitectos Anónimos

Arquitectos Anónimos

Location: Matosinhos, Portugal, southwestern Europe

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