Out & About: General Silveira Building in Porto

The architects and the developer will open the doors of a building that turns out to be two, separated by an irregular courtyard that allows the crossing between the two streets. It turns out that each building unfolds in two volumes, covered by four independent hipped roofs, reproducing the original cadastre of the plot. It will be explained how the past is enhanced by contemporary reinterpretation.

General Silveira Building in Porto

The General Silveira Building design is based on a morphological model that characterizes housing in Porto. Through the design of 4 smaller-scale volumes, contiguous 2 by 2 and separated by a courtyard inside the block, the proposal volumetrically functions as 4 buildings, evoking the memory of the 4 pre-existing
fractions as well as the predominant scale of the surrounding urban fabric – integrating itself into the city’s typological housing matrix. However, the intention is not to mimic the architectural language of the late 19th and early 20th centuries but rather to design a contemporary architecture that seeks to reinterpret the relationships of proportion, materiality and form.
Environmental sustainability has also been addressed throughout the project, especially with passive systems that reduce the building’s ecological footprint.

Guided tours: 4 May / 15:00 | 16:00 | 17:00 CET

Meeting point:
Rua do General Silveira, 30
Porto

◾Guided tour with Tiago Antero (architect); Vítor Preto Fernandes (architect); developer and contractor

Language: Portuguese, English & Spanish

✓ No registration required. (First come, first served)

Out & About 2024

“Out & About. Discovering Architecture. EUmies Awards 2024” will take place from April onwards in over 30 European places in which shortlisted works of the prize are located. Organised by Creative Europe, Fundació Mies van der Rohe and the indisputable expertise of Guiding Architects, everybody has the opportunity to know much more about buildings and public spaces in their cities or in places that they are visiting with the authors, clients and people who know them well.