Caneças High School by ARX Portugal.

In this high school the Portuguese ARX are designed carefully as teaching areas as recreational areas, here everything is a room to learn. We all would have dreamed a school like that!

Memory of project José Mateus y Nuno Mateus.

The existent school is located in the outskirts of Caneças, Odivelas, in a territory of intense discontinuities. The proposal is structured beginning in a double interpretation of the learning concept: formal learning and informal learning.

Those two types are translated in the building in two different architectural approaches, maintaining a dialogue between them. In consequence, the stiffness of the existent blocks, where the class rooms are placed, are structured like “learning machines”, in contrast with the informality of the new parts, enabling the “informal learning “in the collective spaces.

Considering that in the school, every spaces are teaching spaces, that each one as its own importance, the organization and articulation between spaces is meant to fluid, with physical and visual permeability, allowing a more spontaneous and creative appropriation, leading to the willing of learn through space.

The human relations and activities are, in the end, in the base of all knowledge. From a tectonic point of view, the solutions adopted give the building an idea of matter unity and grant the space an elementary and abstract character.

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Interior view, Caneças High School by ARX Portugal. Courtesy of ARX Portugal.

Ground floor, Caneças High School by ARX Portugal.

First floor, Caneças High School by ARX Portugal.

Cover, Caneças High School by ARX Portugal.

Basament, Caneças High School by ARX Portugal.

Section, Caneças High School by ARX Portugal.

Sections, Caneças High School by ARX Portugal.

Elevations, Caneças High School by ARX Portugal.

Detail, Caneças High School by ARX Portugal.

Diagram, Caneças High School by ARX Portugal.

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Architects

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ARX PORTUGAL, Arquitectos Lda. José Mateus Nuno Mateus.

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Project team

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Team collaborators.- Ricardo Guerreiro, Fábio Cortês, Ana Fontes, João Dantas, Sofia Raposo, Mariana Sá, Emanuel Rebelo, Diana Afonso, Miguel Torres, Filipe Cardoso, Bruno Martins, Marc Anguill, Gaia Pelizzari, Rodrigo Henriques. Traços na Paisagem (Landscape Architecture), Pedro Falcão (Graphic Design). Traços na Paisagem (3D Modeling). Engeneerings.- SAFRE, Estudos e Projectos de Engenharia Lda; PEN Engenharia; CTQ, Lda.; SOLGEN; GEOTEST.

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Owner

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Parque Escolar EPE.

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Area

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32,600 sqm (Total Intervention Area), 11 600 sqm (School Building).

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Location

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Rua da Escola Secundária, Caneças, Portugal.

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Photography

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ARX PORTUGAL.

Nuno Mateus, José Mateus. ARX portugal

ARX Portugal, Founded in 1991 by Nuno Mateus e José Mateus. In 1993, ARX was the subject of the exhibition "Real Reality" which opened the cycle of Exhibitions of Architecture of CCB. Since then it has participated in numerous exhibitions. Highlights the Exhibition "ARX - Arquivo / Archive" at the Centro Cultural de Belém, inserted under the celebrations of its 20 years.

Nuno Mateus, graduated in Architecture from Faculdade de Arquitectura / Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (FAUTL) in 1984 and completed in 1987 the "Master of Science in Architecture and Building Design" at Columbia University in New York. Together with José Mateus, founded in 1991 ARX Portugal Arquitectos. Ph.D. in Architecture at Faculdade de Arquitetura / Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (FAUTL), 2013. Guest Associate Professor at Faculdade de Arquitetura / Universidade Técnica de Lisboa and at Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa. Was Director of the Department of Architecture of Universidade Autónoma de Lisboa between 2004 and 2007. Lecturer in several conferences on the work of ARX Portugal in Portugal and in several institutions around the world. Worked previously with Peter Eisenman in New York (1987-1991) and Daniel Libeskind in Berlin (1991).

José Mateus, graduated in Architecture from Faculdade de Arquitectura / Universidade Técnica de Lisboa (FAUTL) in 1986. Together with Nuno Mateus, founded in 1991 ARX Portugal Arquitectos. Guest Professor at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST), in Lisbon. Ph.D. candidate in Architecture at Instituto Superior Técnico (IST). President of the Director's Board of Lisbon Architecture Triennale, was also Executive Director of the events Trienal 2007 and Trienal 2010. Is also currently a member of Babel’s Editorial Board and a member of the Experts Group of the advisory board to the Art in the Lisbon’s Public Space. Was President of the Southern Regional Assembly of the Ordem dos Arquitectos (2008-2010), as well as Vice President of the Direction of the same Regional Section (2005-2007). Was Author/Coordinator of the magazine Linha (Architecture, Design and Landscape) of the weekly newspaper Expresso. Was also author/coordinator of the two television series Tempo & Traço for SIC Notícias Channel. Lecturer in Portugal and in several institutuions around the world. He took part of the jury of the Architecture Prize of São Paulo Biennial in 2003, Europan Spain 2007, ArchiFad 2011 and Experts Board to European Prize for Urban Public Space 2012.