Environmental Monitoring and Interpretation Offices, Tomar, Portugal

Desde la última década del siglo xx, ha sido habitual, sobre todo en la vieja Europa, el encargo de proyectos para la conservación, renovación y conversión de las construcciones históricas y recientes de las más diversas tipologías y matrices culturales. Este síndrome de preservación a veces conduce a una sobrevaloración de las estructuras de los edificios. La antigüedad no es una garantía de calidad arquitectónica, por el contrario, se trata de un proceso de selección natural. Su adecuación a los nuevos y contemporáneos programas puede resultar errónea. Si en ciertos casos la posibilidad de la adecuación está inscripta en la identidad espacial del edificio, en otros, el cambio de usos se revela insuficiente, lo que conduce a un resultado incompatible en el carácter del edificio. A veces, la preservación de la arquitectura existente puede ser la peor forma de destrucción.

Este proyecto forma parte de un programa gubernamental nacional denominado la Polis. La estrategia consistía en revitalizar las ciudades mediante la introducción de nuevos equipamientos como el Monitorizing Enviorenmental y de edificios Interpretation Offices (EMIO). El objetivo es que estos proyectos dinamicen la rehabilitación de la ciudad. Los EMIO son edificios de infraestructura pública destinados a espacios de exposición y otros eventos culturales, en relación con los temas ambientales y regionales.

El proyecto es la reconversión de una antigua infraestructura que juega un papel relevante en el contexto social y urbano de la ciudad de Tomar, aún sin tener ningún interés arquitectónico en particular. La ciudad de Tomar fue fundada en 1161 por la Orden de los Knigths. La estructura fue originalmente un almacén de cereales pertenecientes al Knights Templar. Situado en la entrada del centro histórico de la ciudad, el edificio ha sido objeto de varios cambios y anexos durante los últimos años, transformado primero en una institución bancaria, luego en un depósito industrial y, finalmente, adaptado para alojar las oficinas de la municipalidad, con nuevas paredes, pisos y cielorrasos técnicos, a pesar de estar el edificio protegido por las ordenanzas de preservación histórica.

El nuevo programa consta de dos zonas diferenciadas: una pública para exposiciones, reuniones y una cafetería, y un área privada que cuenta con salas de conferencia y alojamiento para los artistas invitados. Frente a los planes de regulación, el diseño conserva toda la construcción del perímetro exterior. Sin embargo, su interior estaba totalmente deteriorado, por lo tanto, y debido al programa funcional, la nueva construcción se consolida como la anatomía del edificio existente. Un nuevo cuerpo arquitectónico aloja una nueva serie de lugares y situaciones programáticas.

Original Text in English

Since the last decade of the xx century, it has been usual, especially in old Europe, for the comission of projects to demand the conservation, renovation and conversion of constructions from a recent distant past and from the most diverse typologies, and cultural matrices.

This preservation syndrome, sometimes leads to an overvaluation of the building structures. Age is not a warranty of architectural quality, on the contrary it is a natural selection process. The adequacy to new and contemporary programs can be extremely liable to error.  If in certain cases the possibility of adequacy is enrolled in the spatial identity of the building, in others the change of uses reveals itself inadequate, leading to an inconsistent meaning in the character of the building. Sometimes the preservation of the architecture we possess, can be, the worst manner of Destruction.  

The project is part of a nationwide and govermental program – the Polis programe. The strategy was to revive cities by introducing new equipements such as the Enviorenmental Monitorizing and Interpretation Offices ( EMIO ) buildings. The aim was for this projects to energize the rehabilitation of the city.

The EMIO are public infrastructure for exhibition and other cultural events, concerning environmental and regional subjects.

The Project is a reconversion of a former rundown infrastructure that plays a relevant role in the social and urban context of the city of Tomar, although without any particular architectural interest. The city of Tomar was founded in 1161 by the Order of the Knigths. This infraestructure was built as a storehouse for cereals belonging to the Knights Templar.  Located at the beginning of the city historical centre, the building has been subjected to several attachments and changes over the years, finding itself threatened by some decadence and inadequate for the intended use.  Was adapted into a bank institution, an industrial storage and finally adapted into offices belonging to the city hall, with new walls, floors, and tecnhical cellings. Eventhough the building it’s protected under historic-preservation ordinances.

The new program comprises two distinct areas: a public area for exhibitions, meetings and cafeteria and a private area consisting of Lecture rooms and accommodation for invited artists.

Confronted with the regulation plans, the design maintains the entire external perimeter construction, while its rundown interior is totally scooped out.

Therefore and due to the functional program, the new construction establishes itself as the anatomy of the existing building. A new architectural body that runs troughout the available space, de-multiplying tectnocically the finite interior into a new series of places and programatic situations.

The private areas are volumetrically defined within the structure and optimized for inhabitability. Each with its own access, atmosphere, identity, shape, use and dimension. The Social life, exhibitions and meetings take place in the interstitial space around the new structure, and are characterized and organized by the programmatic events defined by the enclosed spaces.

The spaces “born” from a visceral simbiosys and from the tension between this architectonic organism and the phisical limits that keep him in captivity.

The existing building aquires a new interior reading, being reconfigured and transformed in a unitarian and hermetic space with the use of white mate paint and mate epoxi resin coating. For the organism that contaminates the interior it was created and developed a kind of skin. A materiality intended to be abstract and simultaneously expressionistic. Through some kind of alchemy a substance was developed, a recipe, by conjoining some “ingredients”: Dark pigment, Acrylic resin and reflective glass spheres. The entrails of this animal were painted with glossy white paint and with glossy epoxi resin coating. A new interior within an interior interior.

The most challenging and seductive in the design process was claiming and believing in the possibility of transforming the spatial structure in a laboratory. Seeking and testing solutions capable of awsering to a particular project ideal¸ wich inevitably diverge from the generalistic processes of standarization.

A machine capable of producing space, instaled in a shell that was progressivly deflated and then insuflated with a new and strange form of life.