Tabuaço Municipal Swimming Pool

Project Description

The building is located in an area characterised by difficult geological, topographical and accessibility conditions. The choice of this location, near the city park, outdoor swimming pools, the sports hall and schools, aims to establish a centre for educational activities capable of generating momentum for the consolidation and upgrading of the urban environment of this part of the city. In order to make the terrain accessible, it was necessary to design a new route that extended the existing fabric and enabled urban expansion around the existing core.
The first sketches, contrary to the distortion of the slopes by the existing structure, proposed a building that was integrated, simple, monolithic, an integral part of the slope and orientated fully towards the landscape.
Based on this concept, the design comprised two compositions – an access and entry axis to the building that, along the ramp or the stairs, still afforded views of the rural landscape; and a valley axis, parallel to the slope, opening up to the vast landscape, seen through the building from the access square and through the main pool building.