© FG+SG – Fernando Guerra, Sergio Guerra
Architects: João Mendes Ribeiro e Cristina Guedes
Location: Coimbra, Portugal
Collaborators: Duarte Krüger, Eva Berghofer, Francisco Mourão, Manuela Nogueira, Marco Pedrosa, Odete Pereira, Luís Crisóstomo, Pedro Grandão, Ricardo Silva, Sónia Bom, Sónia Gaspar (Project Design). Adalgisa Lopes, Cristina Maximino, Ana Rita Martins, Catarina Fortuna, Diana Afonso, Joana Figueiredo, Jorge Teixeira Dias (Built Project)
Structural Engineer: Alípio Guedes
Hydraulic Engineer: Alípio Guedes
Electrical Engineer: Fernando Silva
Mecanical Engineer: Isabel Sarmento
Client: Universidade de Coimbra
Project Year: 2006-2008
Photographs: FG+SG – Fernando Guerra, Sergio Guerra
This project involves remodelling the old Thermal Centre of University of Coimbra Hospital and constructing a new building. It was developed at the end of 1990s to house the Photographic Study Centre of the University of Coimbra.
The work was completed about ten years later and the building handed over to the Faculty of Arts to serve as the premises for post-graduate courses in Art Studies. Despite the fact that the use and programme of the building had been altered the core characteristics of the project were maintained in full. The project led to requalification of the existing building, on the one hand enhancing it within its historical context of industrial archaeology and, on the other, clarifying its integration in the town structure.
The actual remodelling of the building involved minimal intervention and consisted in restoring the building, maintaining the structural machinery of the boilers and creating suitable air-conditioning and lighting systems for the new programme: cafeteria and art bookshop. The new building was designed in a deliberately neutral language to hightlight the main Casa das Caldeiras building and it was made in apparent concrete. It rises vertically in three square sectioned spaces of varying heights and combinations.
http://www.archdaily.com/62876/casa-das-caldeiras-joao-mendes-ribeiro-e-cristina-guedes/
