Parede Youth Centre
Status: Competition
Site: Parede, Portugal
Architecture: Atelier 17
Team: Nuno Castro Caldas + Sara Brandão
Structural Engineer: Daniel Maio
Landscape: Manuel Cordeiro + Nuno Figueiras (HAHA)
Client: Municipality of Cascais
Total area: 600 m2
Date: 2018
Proposal: The proposal intends to simultaneously value the memory of the existing house - Casa Gaspar - frame the new building on the scale of its surroundings and return to the community a renewed public space.
Referring to the former Major Palla Public Garden, the proposal intends to give back to the neighborhood a public space of reference through the extension and enhancement of the existing public realm and its articulation with the new use of the Casa Gaspar.
With regards to the building the stratagy consists of 3 main aspects:
1. To clean up the existing building and turn it into a big public hall to be used not only by the Youth Centre but also by the community, becoming an integral part of the square and the daily use of the neighborhood.
2. Concentrate all private spaces in the new detached extension.
3. Create a new entrance through the articulation between these two volumes.
Casa Gaspar is also the starting point for the new building, both in its materiality and in the construction of the density of its façade.
Although assuming a contemporary language, the proposed building establishes a dialogue with the existing one, reinterpreting some of the ‘art deco’ elements present in Casa Gaspar.