Porto Cruise Terminal
João Ferrand

The South Mole at the Port of Leixões is visible from a long way off and my attention was aroused as soon as the construction of the Cruise Terminal started. The building is large but being enclosed by the breakwater seems to make its scale entirely appropriate. Because it is isolated it is not easy to grasp its size, but when a large ship is moored alongside, it is clear that it is well proportioned.

Being cylindrical gives it the appearance of a continuous volume, regardless of where you are looking from and it is not easy to identify its front.Its exterior is not formed by a single wall, but seems to be composed of an unbroken ribbon, wound on a shaft in superposed layers that are loosened and also resemble tentacles.

When seen from above, in the distance, it looks like a white dot on the landscape and as we approach it reminds us of the clouds forming the eye of a hurricane, with three long arms that extend around it. When we get closer, we see that it is carefully fitted into the mole, like a ball joint that helps the breakwater to curve – it seems that it was already there long before, and that it was the breakwater that embraced it, grabbing it like a rock.

The building looks very simple in form but it is, in fact, extremely complex and ambitious in terms of function. At first glance one doesn’t realise that it has an open air auditorium on the roof, and has submerged parts that house a vivarium.

After observing it in some detail, it is clear that nothing has been left to chance, and all the pieces fit together as if there were a formula to describe each piece that makes it up.

Outside, it has a rather closed appearance, with exterior cladding tiles resembling a thick skin, like scales, as if they were an organic protection against the action of the wind, the sea and the sun, but inside there is abundant light.

Light floods the interior of the building through huge windows, woven into the gaps that the “unbroken ribbon” from the outside does not cover. Close to, the windows seem solid and thick but within the context of the structure they become light and almost imperceptible.

The pathways inside are simple and seem to be an extension of what we see from the outside. The central spiral ramp strengthens the eye of the hurricane idea, but the space is welcoming and uncluttered.

One curious aspect that is not clear at first sight is that there are narrow slits in the floors of some corridors on the upper floors. It’s strange, because when you look down, you see water through an open hole in the floor. It’s like a kind of gill that is essential for the building to breathe.

Seen from afar, it’s hard to imagine how the Cruise Terminal works, but when we walk around it, its meaning and balance within the Port of Leixões are clearly revealed.

House in the Alentejo Coast
Frederico Valsassina

An apparently infinite woodland on the Alentejo coast. Among pine trees and cork oaks, with a total scarcity of reference points, a white and initially pure mass arises from the terrain. The subtraction of a large concentric cylinder results in a slender volume, attuned to the trees and the existing landscape.

The resulting negative, beyond the scale of a courtyard, traces a perfect circle which seeks to embrace a piece of the surrounding scenery, enveloping it, and fully opening up to the vast blue of the Alentejo sky.

The built mass of the house develops on the edge of this circle. What is inhabited is the perimeter, the surrounding area, which narrows or widens according to its relationship with that great empty space.

In this tense and continuous relationship which is established between the exterior and the confining white mass (as in so many of his creations), light is the primary agent in the material definition of volumes, spaces and objects. Each environment and context is moulded and united by that line of light, which harmonises the opposition between the solid and recognisable limit, and that idea of circular absence embracing pine trees, land, and the remaining empty spaces.

The design seeks transparency, and at the same time opacity. This balanced and connecting synergy of contrasts is balanced by intermittent, large (but controlled) openings, where necessary.

The apt and proportionate measure of these openings continuously reframes the inhabitable depth, first, because it invades it, and then because it cancels it out. The act of inhabiting – and its raison d’être – takes form in the fluid complementarity established with the surrounding exterior in its full expanse. The “house volume-external void” aggregate is transformed, becomes inseparable, affirming itself as a unified, coherent and connected whole.

The indelible presence of these extensive glazed areas highlights the building’s quality as a circular border which opens and yet encloses, rupturing it, exploring it, precisely and punctually framing it. Light is apprehended. Nature is revealed. A frank and intense relationship is formed.

With life, and with a sense of time, (in)finite.

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