jo-ao
architecture office
Interstices of Urban Dualism
In a historical and physical recognition of Maputo, a city whose urban layout is characterized by a specific dual relation contextualized by the sub-sahaaran territory, the present work intends to establish morphological continuities in bodies that can be identified as urban interstices and that reveal an infrastructural dependence only provided the originating european city core structure.
Mafalala and Mikandjuíne, a seat for a unique oceanic culture,make part of this specifically dependent framework. They are interstices of a layout that required continuity and are seen as privileged territories for an architecture project proposal that seeks the resolution of its anachronism, here necessarily morphological, but also economical. Recognizing their state, supported also by their important cultural dimension,Interstices of Urban Dualism proposes an urban concept not yet established in these areas: qualified public space.
To inhabit, produce and pray are postulates for a necessarily pragmatic approach of an urban set characterized by its culture and history, and for a design that is intended to be structural and elemental: the opening of intersecting and connecting axes, the fissuration of the residential mass providing a natural infrastructure for economic self-sustanability, the strategic score of metropolitan equipments - where the proposed religious structure is set upon -, and the wall and brick as the architectural elements from which all design is founded upon.
Awarded Project
Location: Maputo, Mozambique
Drawings, visualizations and models: João de Oliveira
Featured Work: Arquitecturas Lusófonas, Caleidoscópio, Lisbon 2017
In a historical and physical recognition of Maputo, a city whose urban layout is characterized by a specific dual relation contextualized by the sub-sahaaran territory, the present work intends to establish morphological continuities in bodies that can be identified as urban interstices and that reveal an infrastructural dependence only provided the originating european city core structure.
Mafalala and Mikandjuíne, a seat for a unique oceanic culture,make part of this specifically dependent framework. They are interstices of a layout that required continuity and are seen as privileged territories for an architecture project proposal that seeks the resolution of its anachronism, here necessarily morphological, but also economical. Recognizing their state, supported also by their important cultural dimension,Interstices of Urban Dualism proposes an urban concept not yet established in these areas: qualified public space.
To inhabit, produce and pray are postulates for a necessarily pragmatic approach of an urban set characterized by its culture and history, and for a design that is intended to be structural and elemental: the opening of intersecting and connecting axes, the fissuration of the residential mass providing a natural infrastructure for economic self-sustanability, the strategic score of metropolitan equipments - where the proposed religious structure is set upon -, and the wall and brick as the architectural elements from which all design is founded upon.
Awarded Project
Location: Maputo, Mozambique
Drawings, visualizations and models: João de Oliveira
Featured Work: Arquitecturas Lusófonas, Caleidoscópio, Lisbon 2017