architect: Guedes Cruz Arquitectos
location: Cascais, Portugal
Located in Cascais, in the metropolitan area of Lisbon, the Social Complex of Alcabideche with a total construction area of approximately 10,000 sqm aims to reconstitute a Mediterranean life style in which the outdoor spaces of streets, plazas and gardens are like an extension of the house itself.
Concluded in 2012 it comprises 52 houses (housing units intended for elderly couples) and a main support building that houses the social areas, a nursing area with individual rooms and an area for bedridden patients. The connective layout with a modulation of 7.5 m has, as in a Medina, streets of different widths reserved for pedestrians who enjoy the protection of the shade provided by the houses by day and at night are guided by the light the houses give off.
In the event of an emergency, users can activate an alarm that alerts the control station located in the central building and the box-shaped roof‘s light changes: the large white box turns red. The final solutions depend on the effectiveness of its form or on the efficacy of the functioning of the choices of systems and materials to be used. The houses are formed by a nucleus of exposed concrete with a “rough” formwork of wooden lathes that house the habitable area, living room and kitchen, bedroom and bathroom and a box in which the material, plexiglass, has specific characteristics: reflection of the sun‘s rays (white), being impermeable, being resistant to the weather and to fire and which allows the light in (translucid).
The stabilization of the temperature on the inside of the housing units is due to the reflective properties of the white box of the roof and the thermal efficiency of the air cushion created between the plexiglass box and the concrete base.
The central building, within the same modelling and principles, contains all of the common services necessary for proper functioning and quality of living. It includes the electricity production systems, the photovoltaic plant, which supply the habitable areas of the residence.
architecture project: Guedes Cruz Arquitectos: José Guedes Cruz, César Marques, Marco Martínez Marinho
architecture collaborators: Patrícia Maria Matos, Nelson Aranha, João Simões, Isabel Graneslocation: Alcabideche, Cascais, Portugal
area of the plot: 12 876 sqm
total construction area: 9 956 sqm
each housing unit area: 53 sqm
total area housing units: 2 756 sqm
main building area: 2 700 sqm
below ground: 4 500 sqm
total: 7 200 sqm
promoter: Fundação Social do Quadro Bancário
structure: PPE
landscape architecture: Paula Botas
photos: Ricardo Oliveira Alves
