For the rehabilitation of the volume of the stands, the CREA Arquitetos studio used a symmetrical composition in the elevation, creating a rhythm of pillars that converge at the porticoed entrance, reflecting the original rationalist inspiration of the building. The interior was restructured to include new sports spaces complementary to the playing field and the roof surface was increased.
The two new buildings intended to house the CDUP headquarters program provide support for university students, including multipurpose spaces, work rooms and meeting offices. The two new buildings follow a more dynamic and fluid composition compared to the rigorous symmetry of the stands building.
For both the rehabilitated building and the two new ones, terracotta-coloured pigmented concrete was used for the facades and the ceilings and interiors of the ground floor.
Porto University Stadium by CREA Arquitetos. Photograph by Fernando Guerra.
Project description by CREA Arquitetos
The project to rehabilitate and expand the CDUP grandstand and headquarters was promoted by the University of Porto and developed by Crea, in the context of the University Stadium, located in Quinta do Campo Alegre, and inaugurated in 1953.
It was a long process, with a pandemic in between, and it has recently been reopened to the community.
The challenge was to renovate the existing grandstand building, as well as integrate the new buildings for the CDUP. It was this spirit of designing a cohesive whole that inspired the project, where the architecture must not and cannot break with the context, and must be relational in time.
The existing grandstand building, of rationalist inspiration, was reflected in the composition and sobriety of the elevation up to the access road, arranged in strict symmetry and with a composition defined by a metric of pillars that converge at the porticoed entrance - a loggia over the street that marks the passage to the interior of the stadium. The bas-reliefs carved into the granite mural stand out, with motifs that refer to the image of the mythology of classical antiquity and to the original ancient games.
In parallel with the structural reform, the interior space was redesigned to include the support areas for the playing fields, with access through the central portico open to the street. Access for spectators is via the stairs at the top of the tribune, and a significant increase in the covered surface was promoted by redesigning the roof.
Two new buildings were designed on the longitudinal alignment of the existing tribune, which absorb the program of the CDUP headquarters and support the university students, including work offices, meeting and social rooms and multipurpose facilities. In close relation to the pre-existing volumetry and composition, its design was contaminated by the metrics of the tribune, but it is freed from that rigorous symmetry, reinterpreted in a more fluid and dynamic movement.
To the east, the buildings open generously onto the playing fields, inscribing the same compositional dynamic in the arrangement of the concrete pillars of the façade, which create balconies or large planes framing the grass.
There is a certain austerity evident in the grandstand, which was also borrowed for the synthetic approach we sought in the new buildings: the pigmented concrete of the façades also invades the interior, and is the same terracotta-coloured material of the roofs and the ground floor, introducing a vitality that contrasts with the sobriety of the grandstand and with the surrounding treetops.
