"Passport Series - Azores"
Passport series is a travel photography project, where I try to document what I see and create an authorial narrative.
"Passport series - Azores" - Author Photography
In April 2023, I went to the Azores for the first time, and for the first time to photograph a project, or rather, two interior projects for Curia Studio, an interior design firm with an office in Ponta Delgada.
On this trip, I took the opportunity to get to know a bit about the island, some of the landmark architectural works, the local culture and to carry out the two projects.
Located on the island of São Miguel, Azores, the Gorreana Tea Factory is the oldest tea factory in Europe still in operation. Founded in 1883 by Ermelinda Pacheco Gago da Câmara, the company is still a family business. The humid and rainy climate, the mild temperatures, as well as the acidic and volcanic soil, have allowed for the production of quality green and black tea
Increasingly, Gorreana tea has been internationally recognized for its legacy and for growing and marketing top quality teas. Planted hundreds of kilometers from industrial pollution, in the vast mountains of the lush estate, Gorreana tea is not subject to any use of herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, dyes or preservatives. Harvested between April and October, Gorreana tea is a 100% organic product.
Currently, the Gorreana plantations cover an area of 32 hectares, from which around 40 tons are produced each year. A small part of the production is destined for the Azorean market, while the rest is exported to many countries such as mainland Portugal, Germany, the USA, Canada, Austria, France, Italy, Brazil, Angola, Japan and many other countries that value the quality and uniqueness of Gorreana teas above all else.
Sete Cidades allotment and houses / Eduardo Souto de Moura + Adriano Pimenta
The project involves the construction of 27 houses on a cost-controlled basis, with the project's main objective being to ensure that the cost/quality ratio of the dwellings is optimized. The rationality of the space solutions seeks to ensure that the activities of family life are satisfied. The houses are built on two floors with the use of a false floor and an outdoor oven, characteristic elements of the typologies of northeastern São Miguel.
The plot of land, with a total area of 13,202 m², is located in a transitional area of Vila das Sete Cidades, bordered to the west by an existing road, with a consolidated frontage of ground floor plus 1 bedroom houses, to the north by a house and a series of agricultural plots, to the east by an agricultural plot and to the south by a wooded plot with no buildings.
In defining the streets, two priority west/east axes have been created, which serve the access roads to the plots in the north/south direction.
The houses, 18 (3-bedroom) and 9 (2-bedroom), are arranged on the plots in the direction of the north/south streets, facing either west/east or east/west, working in quincunx in the block resulting from the organization of the streets, so as to provide an unobstructed view of the lagoon.
Arquipélago Contemporary Arts Center / Menos é Mais Arquitectos + João Mendes Ribeiro
Arquipélago - Contemporary Arts Center seeks to unite the different scales and times of its parts. It is a transdisciplinary project whose mission is to disseminate, create and produce emerging culture: a space of exchange and interface for people, knowledge and events.
The project maintains the industrial character of the whole and highlights the dialogue between an existing building (former alcohol / tobacco factory) and the new construction (arts and culture center, storage facilities, multipurpose hall / performing arts, laboratories, art studios).
The Archipelago acquires its identity through the quiet variation between the pre-existing and the two new buildings. The strategy of containing the application facilities increases the spatial efficiency and hierarchical functionality of the different areas of the existing factory complex. The new buildings absorb the required functionalities, with special conditions that are not compatible with the spatiality of the pre-existing buildings.
The project does not exaggerate the differences between the old and new buildings. On the contrary, it seeks to unite the different scales and memories of its parts in a whole pictorial manipulation of the form and materiality of the buildings - the existing constructions are marked by volcanic stone masonry and the new buildings are characterized by an abstract form, without reference or allusion to any language. Constructed in concrete with local basalt aggregates, he works continuously with the variation of textures and roughness of the surfaces, complementing the mass of the buildings with the emptiness of the courtyards.
The new program reinvents the existing building, making it a significant space in a peripheral region in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
The Archipelago adds meaning to the social and cultural context in which it is built. A new public space materializes in a central square / courtyard, where art feels comfortable and blurs the boundaries between public and private spheres, leisure and work, art and life.
Aspects of the buildings' sustainable performance were addressed through their materiality (structures, infrastructures) and the absorption of existing craft knowledge enriched by the building's timeless form. The sustainable measures adopted are passive systems that seek to provide comfort for users: the density of the concrete walls offers inertia and energy efficiency; rainwater is reused.
The project has a commitment to the quality of what exists, showing the typological variations - new buildings are placed next to existing ones, in a serene way - underlining the architectural memory of a certain period and an addition, which neither damages nor subverts the constructive structures of the whole. Context and contiguity contribute to the object's autonomy.
Between the various visits to the island's must-see sites and the architectural projects I wanted to visit, I encountered the various seasons throughout the day: on the island, it rains a lot and it's sunny and hot on the same day, which is absolutely normal.
Over the course of two days, I photographed two interior projects. Here are some of the images that resulted from the shoot.
I'm also sharing a short description of the project, which appeared in the October issue of Urbana magazine.
"Inserted in a residential area in the center of Ponta Delgada, in the Azores, the house, a four-bedroom divided into three floors, recently had the intervention of Curia Studio for the interior design project, which completely rethought the decoration and furniture, at the request of the clients. "Respecting the existing architectural base, we wanted to leave the main rooms of the house white in order to define all the shapes well. Only in the private areas did we opt for a warmer color, leaving a more intimate and relaxing atmosphere," they tell us. The clients, a cosmopolitan couple who live inside and outside their home in a very fluid way, "like to make the most of every room, with the initial premises being functionality and the well-being of those who live in and visit the house." With an interior area of 265m, the villa is supported by a 100m outdoor space with a swimming pool and a dining area, with the main social areas distributed on the ground floor. "The heart of the house is undoubtedly the living room," say the architects, "which communicates directly with the dining room."
This space is joined by the office, guest toilet, pantry, kitchen and laundry room. The first floor has three bedrooms and a suite, accessed via the entrance hall, complemented by the mezzanine, from where you can see the living room on the lower floor. Finally, on the top floor of the villa, there is the cinema and games room, as well as another work space. In good weather, the pleasant indoor living room is replaced for a good few hours of the day by the garden dining room, with the swimming pool as a major attraction, constantly winking at its residents and guests. "All the premises for this project were to reflect the spaciousness of the spaces and take advantage of them," they continue. Thus, through darker woods, black details and neutral tones, "a classic, sober and elegant style" was created. "We wanted to create and start from a sober and elegant base, to evolve to the rest of the decoration, so that the house, as a whole, displayed a chromatic palette marked by neutral tones, which conveyed comfort and a sense of well-being."
The intention of the project was to evoke the architectural landscape of the Azores, in a line of continuity with the forms and materials that shape the collective memory of the island and the archipelago, and of which they are already, by the force of time, a kind of second nature. The buildings are simple, compact archetypal volumes, clad in the region's basalt stone.
As the most exceptional building, the Furnas Monitoring and Research Center uses an intermediate space between the outside and the inside - the patio.
This appears as a subtraction to the volume, cutting it out from the central area (apex of the four levels) until it rips through one of the elevations, thus allowing access to the interior.
It is from this courtyard that the main compartments of the building are revealed. These spaces, truncated by the courtyard, maintain all the indoor/outdoor relationships resulting from the existing openings. The building was thus conceived as a sculpture, as a block of raw material that is intentionally cut to capture the light and the lagoon itself.
"Passport Series
"A mind that opens up to a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions"
Oliver Wendell Holmes