projects | Viabizzuno progettiamo la luce

this attractive building that asserts itself in the uncontaminated landscape is a monitoring and investigation centre with attached temporary accomodation for researchers, situated on são miguel island, portugal. the monitoring centre is the biggest of the two buildings and it is composed of three wings that include a courtyard overlooked by all the rooms. the courtyard is an intermediate space between exterior and interior, a passage way and also the point where the main internal compartments are revealed. this internal courtyard becomes a space for concentration and relax, a link between interior and exterior: an emotional and architectural space where natural light has a dialogue with the building materials. the building was therefore conceived as a sculpture, as a block of raw matter that is intentionally cut into to capture light and the lagoon itself. the relation with natural light becomes an attractive art of matter, the structure gets shape according to the alternate rhythm of the natural light along with the artificial one. the building for temporary accommodation is a compact volume of four fields compartmentalised into four units. the building is cut in each of the four facades by a wooden threshold that enables the penetration of light and access to each of the accommodation units. there is an established hierarchy of heights between the four spaces related to the solar orientation of each unit. the light project of the whole structure plays on the relation between natural and artificial light : the ‘bacchette magiche’ and c1 profiles used on the inside create an artificial light path that snakes on the surfaces and becomes an ideal continuum with sun rays that seep through the cuts in the façades. the project aims to evoke the architectural landscape of the azores, drawing upon the form and material that are set in the collective memory of this island and archipelago and that have become, with time, a second nature of this place. therefore the buildings are archetypal volumes, simple and compact, clad with the local basaltic stone.