SOCIO-CULTURAL CENTER OF COSTA NOVA

DESCRIPTION

The land of implantation of the Socio-Cultural Center of Costa Nova is located on the seafront
of the Costa Nova, in Ílhavo, on the dunes that limit the beach and the Avenue of the Nossa
Senhora da Saúde that gives you service. The east side of this street is built entirely by buildings
destined mainly for housing, with heights between two and three floors.
At the height of the Avenue you can not see the sea. However, you must be aware of its
presence beyond the dune. There is finally an extensive set of paths on raised wooden decks
that run through the dunes and link the urban settlement with the beach.
The new building proposes, in this context, to assume as a finishing piece, with its functional
public polyvalence and symbolic presence. It is about accommodating the new health post, a
social center, showroom and exhibitions. The intervention is characterized by an approach
based on four fundamental topics:

1. The constructive tradition of the haystacks

2. The pedagogy of the construction on the dune
3. The building-landscape, route of visual access to the sea.
4. The rural land structure as a morphological matrix

Costa Nova's original construction and urbanity typology is one of the main conceptual
premises of the project, which seeks to reinterpret in a clearly contemporary and symbolic
public approach, the way of looking at the place and building, ancestral and characteristic of
Costa Nova .

In this sense, it is proposed that all the construction be made of wood, based on a semi-insulated
network of reinforced concrete foundations, in order to stabilize the building that will float on
the dune, like the buildings of the original haystacks.

The building will assume a relatively close attitude to interventions called "land art", assuming
its public nature, of a referential and symbolic image. This conceptual strategy also seeks to
take advantage of the implantation of the building in a pit, looking for, by contrast, to build a
fluid connection to the roof, from which we can have a broad view of the sea when climbing
to the extreme west. The tour continues through the heart of the building, breaking a public
square in wood, like an altar, that leads the visitor to its interior.

The topographical nature of the building and the fact that all the cover is accessible contributes
to strengthening its public character, as its relationship with the land and the sea will provide a
new experience for the inhabitants and visitors of Costa Nova, since in the days of today the
visual relation with the water from the public spaces of the urban agglomerate is done
essentially with the ria and not with the sea.

The surrounding region of the Aveiro and Ílhavo Rivers has a very peculiar land structure, due
to the narrow and long lots, due to the need for access through the roads and the sharing of
generations. This characteristic gives the locality a very particular character with a visible
impact on the built heritage that became remarkable in this region.
The building seeks to respond to this characteristic, being separated into 3 longitudinal bodies
particularized towards the urban agglomerate, with different finishes on the roof. This
condition, besides limiting the different zones of pedestrian access, allows to extend the land
structure of Costa Nova to the building, reinforcing the connection of this to the pre-existing
territory.

The building that is now proposed aims to contribute to a reflection on the evolution of Costa
Nova and the character of the constructions of man in this context over time. The Place, the
Man and the Time.

Being a current building, on the one hand, and of public use and of great scale on the other, it
is verified that the morphological typology of the ancestral haystack does not seem
adequate. But traditional building materials and techniques can surely set new uses and times.
A general constructive strategy was adopted in wood, based on a three-dimensional structure
of pillars and beams of laminated wood, with a monochromatic wooden liner nailed
horizontally, protected with natural oils as in the original haystacks. The whole interior will
also be constructed of wood, in a logical coherence with the general constructive system,
adopting a tectonic of timeless content that evokes the memory of a familiar and distant doing.
It is intended that the entire structure and coatings be made apparent, as in the original wooden
boats and haystacks, contributing, as it used to, to the building to have a strong plastic and
constructive identity, and not so much "decorative", which results directly from way of doing.
The building, which will be presented between a form of land art and the construction of an
inverted ship, will present a strong dichotomy between a coarser and monolithic exterior and a
delicate and light (white) interior.

The transitions between interior and exterior, both in the facades and in the blades that shade
the glass facades, will be the moments of greatest tension between the architecture and the
structure, because it is in these zones in which the building is more particularized in relation to
a structural logic and essentially repetitive construction.

We also seek to ensure that the coverage of this building is mostly visited, so that the
installation of a cafeteria and the ramp of the auditorium are mandatory points of passage and
stop at any visit to Costa Nova, allowing visual contact with the sea. The roof will be paved in
wood and will also have some areas in gravel, so that the beach and the dune merge with the
building, in search of a natural construction.