Coexistence
—Château de la Mothe-Chandeniers, FR
Nowadays we often find ourselves thinking how living within nature would mean. As architects we often relate our thoughts to a platonic retreat, typically located in a context that is systematically and programmatically different to the urban context we live in.
Design architecture within nature has always been challenging. Canonic elements of architecture don’t make us relevant here, ephemeral yet untouchable conditions are driving forces instead.
Our aim is to put forward an architectural proposal that treasures the core values around nature and generates spaces that celebrate it.
Sara Hildén Art Museum
—Tampere, FI
with twelvefortyone.co.uk
Everything often starts from a very simple gesture that eventually turns into something magical, sophisticated.
The ability of every form of art is to play with our imagination, taking us through an unexpected journey. Masses, matters, contrasts, colors, these are often the tools to play with, finding balances, proportions. The way to experience them is the prelude to something surprising, or better yet, unknown. Architecture often finds itself to relate to the same principles. Gestures define spaces, moves depict movements, materials create atmospheres, thresholds allow for a subconscious sound perception.
Experiencing it should do the rest.
Flamingo Visitor Center
—Abu Dhabi, UAE
The proposal originated through the understanding of the land, and its own morphology. We have been fascinated by what horizontality has to offer, its sense of calmness, acceptance, and the ability of stretching the stretching horizon and its continuity. While the land seamlessly houses changes in its landscape, dry and wet seems to dwell together in an uninterrupted and sophisticated way. Coexistence.
A simple geometry and yet a simple construction, with a layer of complexity that can be experienced, felt, ultimately owned. An interactive journey into the land to learn the beauty of it, as well as the beauty in its own simplicity.
Monte d'Oiro Wine Testing Room
—Monte d'Oiro, PT
“The taste of the apple.. lies in the contact of the fruit with the palate,not in the fruit itself; in a similar way...poetry lies in the meeting of the poem and reader, not in the lines of symbols printed on the pages of a book. What is essential is the aesthetic act, the thrill, the almost physical emotion that comes with each reading…"
JORGE LUIS BORGES
We believe in aging as a form of beauty. Our focus was on generating a space that employs the juxtaposition between natural material like stone and wood with machine made materials like glass and metal to create a sensation of duality between belongingness and weightlessness. This interplay of materials allows the architecture to be representative of Portugal’s rich built environment of traditional and contemporary design.
Transient Landscapes
—Viña Lanciano at Bodegas, SP
Human sight carries an educated yet sharp ability for learning.
We get used to what we see thanks to our capacity to process endless images, that often turn into what’s best known as memories. This is why we get familiar with a place, a landscape, a person, a specific moment.
But what happens if we could manipulate even just a single frame?
Through the four (4) Periscopes the user could experience the landscape in a more exploratory way. The Land and the Vines continue their complex pattern to the sky, following the basic principles of photographic negative, where colors turn into to their opposites, generating a different color spectrum, yet intertwined with the original source.