TROFA TOWN HALL
NO ARQUITECTOS, LDA. - NOARQ
Short description
The rehabilitation and extension of the former “Indústria Alimentar Trofense” buildings into the Trofa City Hall.
Trofa is the youngest municipality in Portugal and was the only one that did not have an institutional building. For more than 25 years, the City Council occupied scattered spaces in the city, in a precarious situation.
The building site is in the south of the urban centre. An incomplete and old area of the city. occupied by an Industrial complex.
The plot covers 6,200.85 sqm. Is a strip measuring 28 by 200 meters parallel to the abandoned railway line.
The reuse of the industrial complex required a considerable increase in area and an underground floor. We decided to preserve just the seminal building.
The new building proposal reduces itself to a series of 5 juxtaposed narrow parallelepipeds divided into 3 floors.
The first parallelepiped is used for the longitudinal circulation in the building.
Two more blocks on each of the tops of the old building constitute the central mass of the City Hall, where are located all the municipal services.
The third parallelepiped attached to the west façade has lost its configuration, to integrate the old building and to preserve its dialogue with the landscape. It is an empty space, the public space, allowing visual contact between the different levels.
The fourth block located on the south top, has the same role and the same free space.
The fifth in the underground is for the parking, technical services and storage.
The result is a building with 6.700 sqm a footprint of 1.996 sqm and a maximum height of 17.14 m.
The building is a synthesis. The budget was limited. Public buildings are not properly maintained. Maintenance is expensive and is not sustainable. The essential can resist the time. Each element is a structural entity, whose subtraction compromises the whole. Materials and construction technologies were selected based on durability, energy efficiency, low maintenance requirements and constructive economy.
INNOVATION
Innovation is not image. Innovation is the attitude of continuous reduction, as a sustainable, regulated and sophisticated response to the demands of our time.
The budget was limited. knew that public buildings are not properly maintained. Continuous maintenance is expensive and is not sustainable. The building belongs to the public administration. Public administration belongs to everyone but doesn’t belong to anyone. Building maintenance does not give political victories. The City Hall building is based on a comprehensive sustainability strategy. We proposed an austere, constructive, serene building that could resist at time.
The sustainability strategy goes much further than the material ecology, construction waste management, or energy autonomy. Sustainability begins in the respect for the industrial heritage
First and foremost, we sought economic sustainability. We choose local technologies and materials. Those that require less transport effort, carbon emissions and respect for natural and energy resources.
The spirit of Portuguese architecture is simple and sober. The building returns to the essence of architecture: construction; space; scale and proportion. Only the essentials resist to time. The Town Hall was built in concrete, thermally insulated by the outside and protected from the weather and the time by an external facing brick wall. These are not skin choices or finishing layers. The exposed concrete and the massive bricks are integral and durable. Their ecological footprint diminishes over their lifespan - remember the Pantheon of Agrippa.
Innovative is our rejection for artificial materials (excepting glass and textiles). Innovation is the subtle integration on the architectural space and access to the sophisticated installations systems and technical devices, like the HVAC systems; thermic control; noise reduction; electrical and communications networks; security and CCTV systems; fire devices…
BENEFITS
An architectural idea does not exist without situation in time. The best architecture responds to the fundamental concerns of its time. We live times of efficiency, effectiveness, certification, safety and inclusion, under ecological and sustainability concerns. We do not accept responses that are not ergonomic, thermic controlled, not energy efficient, acoustic comfort… In other words, we do not accept any solution out of the regulatory, social, and environmental guarantees. The abundance of technical demands, constrained by restricted budgets (every day more controlled), do not allow distractions. The budget control rejects the excesses and the formal exuberance. For this set of architect’s responsibilities, NOARQ rejects to build more than necessary. We believe that excellence lies in the appropriate scale, integrity, and authenticity of each element. Only the essential is reasonable. Only diaphanous integrity can accommodate the unpredictability of the future, stand the test of time, and be universally justified.
The austere architecture of the building is the best proposal for all the demands and circumstances of this commission. We designed a building with a single material, a single light and color. Qualities that we found on the existing ruins in the place.
We increased the public access area. We expand the right foot. We partially recovered the idea of the medieval Town Hall - the citizens' atrium. Public space should prevail over the space of those who serve them; be a sheltered extension of the public square, open (in glass) to the offices of services or politicians. Once inside, the citizens share the same space with those who serve them, without walls.