Casa dos Cubos

The project was part of a nationwide governmental programme that aimed to energise the rehabilitation of small cities – Polis. The strategy was to revive cities by introducing new structures such as the Environmental Monitoring and Interpretation Office (EMIO) buildings, public infrastructures for exhibitions and other cultural events revolving around environmental and regional subjects. This EMIO project involved the conversion of a rundown infrastructure that, although without any particular architectural interest, had played a relevant role in the social and urban context of the city of Tomar. The building had been protected under municipal historic-preservation ordinance even though nothing had been retained from its original state.

The new programme as requested in the rules of the competition, comprised two distinct areas: a public area for exhibitions and meetings, along with a cafeteria, and a private area consisting of lecture rooms and accommodation for invited artists. In keeping with the planning regulations, the design maintained the external perimeter of the construction in its entirety, while its derelict interior was completely removed.

A kind of skin was created that shields the interior workings of this creation. It took the form of a materiality that aimed to be abstract and simultaneously expressionistic. The entrails of this body were painted with glossy white paint and with glossy epoxy resin coating. A new interior within an interior.

The most challenging and seductive element in the design process was claiming and believing, that with a very reduced budget, it was possible to transform this spatial structure into a laboratory. A machine capable of producing space, installed in a shell that had been progressively deflated and then re-inflated with a “new and strange form of life”.