Francisco de Arruda School, Lisbon Education Building, José Sobral Blanco Design

Francisco de Arruda School Lisbon

Building for Parque Escolar: Portuguese Architecture design by José Neves

30 Mar 2012

Francisco de Arruda School Lisboa

Location: central Lisbon, Portugal

Design: José Neves architect

photo : Laura Castro Caldas & Paulo Cintra; João Dias

Francisco de Arruda School

FRANCISCO DE ARRUDA SCHOOL

It is a project within the “School Modernization Program” sponsored by the Parque Escolar, for a school originally designed by architect José António Pedroso in 1956.

The three bodies that constitute the school are situated on the hillside in the continuity of the Faculty of Agronomy fields, overlooking the district of Alcântara.

photos : Laura Castro Caldas & Paulo Cintra; João Dias

The original building, spread across three platforms pragmatically modelled on the hill, is organized around a central patio and has three bodies each with its own functions – teaching, administration, and covered playground; gym and cafeteria; workshops – linked through covered outdoor galleries. These bodies, with very different shapes, were taken by us as if they had been built over time, making a little city. Our project quietly continues this process.

For the outdoor areas, of unusually generous dimensions, the project underlines the continuity of the vegetation of the fields through new plantations, in order to emphasize the sense of the site as a public garden. The staircase that we designed, opening an existing cul-de-sac to connect the central patio to the old Patio das Caravelas situated on the top platform, as well as the direct connection created between the new library and the sports fields across the covered playground, are both transformations that help to emphasize the sense of the whole as a public garden and profoundly shape the daily living in the school.

photos : Laura Castro Caldas & Paulo Cintra; João Dias

On the other hand, the original buildings are restored as well as adapted to new needs, through minimum interventions, particularly in the external form and the finishes of the interior spaces.

photos : Laura Castro Caldas & Paulo Cintra; João Dias

Finally, three new elements are added:

a) a long two-storey building completes the outline of the original patio. It is discovered after a short path through the garden, as the new school entrance. Designed as a public gallery, meeting and study space, along the courtyard – as a sheltered stoa – this building contains the new library on the ground floor and the new laboratories on the top floor, facing, eastward, the gardens of the school, the neighbouring fields and the city;

b) the spas are built under the old Pátio das Caravelas between the existing gym and the new covered sports field that is situated in one of the high platforms of the site;

c) the original main atrium, never used as one, is now the atrium of a small multipurpose room, designed as a garden pavilion, which the population of the school calls “magic cube”.

Given the beauty of the original Francisco de Arruda School situation, once again the clear and direct words of João dos Santos served as a greater stimulus to the project: “What is important in education, first of all, is the natural and aesthetically harmonious environment in which it takes place.”

photos : Laura Castro Caldas & Paulo Cintra; João Dias

Francisco de Arruda School – Building Information

Location: Lisbon
Project year: 2008-09
Construction year: 2009-11
Architect: José Neves
Collaborators: Rui Sousa Pinto, Ana Belo, André Matos, Filipe Cameira, Martim Enes Dias, Nuno Florêncio, Steven Evans, Vitor Quaresma; João Pernão, Maria Capelo (colour consultants)
Landscape Architecture: F|C
Engineering: Betar, SM&LM, PEN, Natural Works

Photographs: Laura Castro Caldas & Paulo Cintra; João Morgado

Client: Parque Escolar

photo : João Morgado

GoogleMaps coordinates: 38.706942,-9.187188
GPS coordinates: 38º 42.406’ N; 9º 11.236’ O

photo : Laura Castro Caldas & Paulo Cintra; João Dias

Francisco de Arruda School Lisbon images / information from José Neves

José Neves, born in Lisbon in 1963, graduated in Architecture from Lisbon’s Technical University School of Architecture in 1986, the same year he represented Portugal in the 2nd Biennial of Young Artists from Europe and the Mediterranean, in Thessaloniki, selected by the Secretariat of State for Culture.

From 1986 until 1990 worked with Duarte Cabral de Mello and since 1991 participated in several projects with Vítor Figueiredo. That same year opened his own office.

The Rui Jordão House (nominated for the SECIL Architecture Award 1998 and 1st Prize in the Torres Vedras Municipality Awards for Architecture 1996-2001), the Lisbon University’s Faculty of Sciences – C6 Building and Boulevard (1st Prize in the Public Competition and nominated for the SECIL Architecture Award 2004), the regeneration and expansion of Marquesa de Alorna School and Francisco de Arruda School, in Lisbon, and the Maritime Station of Madalena do Pico, in Azores, are some of his works. Obtained several prizes in Public Competitions such as for the Carnival Arts Centre in Torres Vedras, the Rectorate of Lisbon Technical University, the Minho’s University School of Architecture, or the Street Market in Almada.

Teacher at F.A./U.T.L. since 1989, where he is currently working on his PHD thesis.

Note – Lisboa is often translated as Lisbon in English

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photo : Laura Castro Caldas & Paulo Cintra
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