josé neves: marquesa de alorna school

view from the school courtyard from the new covered playground. photographer: laura castro caldas & paulo cintra

the marquesa de alorna school, designed by architect josé sobral blanco in 1956, was one of 50 schools built in portugal according to the type promoted by the construction board for secondary and technical education in the 1950’s. like many of these schools, it had two main bodies, one containing the academic and administrative areas, the other housing the gym and cafeteria. the two bodies were linked by the main atrium of the school and the covered playground. in this instance, the set defined a patio surrounded by an amphitheatre-shaped slope with woods, the result from an excavation on the hillside to build the original school. the beauty of the patio has since been disfigured, as the covered playground was closed, cutting the visual relationship between the patio and the city, and as the slope was largely destroyed in order to allow the construction of a parking building owned by a bank.

as part of the ‘school modernization program’ of the parque escolar, portuguese architecture firm josé neves provides for two types of intervention, namely: a) in the existing building, the atrium, corridors and stairs, generously proportioned with its floor and wainscots in hydraulic mosaic; the exterior walls in painted plaster; the window frames in painted wood and the roof in flat tiles are restored. the existing classrooms receive new elements to bring more comfort – a suspended ceiling, a window blind, a wall;

b) on the other hand, three new bodies are added to the set: 1) a tower with the new laboratories and drawing rooms, west of the existing wing containing the classrooms; 2) a body, designed as a bridge, with the library, links the existing body that contains the gym and the cafeteria to the classrooms. under this bridge, a covered playground, designed as an outdoor hypostyle room and relating directly to the students room, restore the original visual continuity between the main atrium and the patio of the school; 3) a semi-buried body of spas under the sports field which is protected by a plant structure that partly recovers the green screen earlier realized by the woods.

given a school in which the diversity of spaces and situations was increasingly reduced throughout its history, a sentence of joão dos santos served as a greater stimulus for the project: ‘if you do not have a village, my son, you have to go in search of it! a boy can not live without his village.’

view of the patio from the restored main staircase of the school. photographer: laura castro caldas & paulo cintra

the covered playground is designed like a hypostyle room. photographer: laura castro caldas & paulo cintra

photographer: laura castro caldas & paulo cintra

photographer: laura castro caldas & paulo cintra

view of the library’s adjacent space inside the bridge. photographer: laura castro caldas & paulo cintra

view of the library room. photographer: joão dias (video still)

view of the new library from the playing field. photographer: laura castro caldas & paulo cintra

view of the restored original buildings’ roofs, of the new library and of the city, from the tower. photographer: laura castro caldas & paulo cintra

the tower and the woods. design study model. photographer: laura castro caldas & paulo cintra

2nd level plan

site plan

project info:

location: lisbon project year: 2007-2008 construction year: 2008-2010 architect: josé neves colaborators: rui sousa pinto, andré matos, bernardo enes dias, filipe cameira, hugo ferreira, nuno florêncio, vitor quaresma; joão pernão, maria capelo (colour consultants) landscape architecture: proap engineering: betar, joule, natural works photographs: laura castro caldas & paulo cintra; joão dias client: parque escolar

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