ARCHITECTURE: Aires Mateus _______________________________________________ ADDRESS: Lagoa das Furnas _______________________________________________ CITY: São Miguel _______________________________________________ DATE: 2004-2010 _______________________________________________ VISIT: Inside - Outside _______________________________________________ MORE DETAILS: The centre is composed of two buildings, compact and simple volumes, covered with local basalt stone. The Observatorium of Furnas and the Investigation Centre is the largest of the two buildings and has three wings that enclose a central courtyard. The building was conceived like a sculpture – a block of prime material that was intentionally cut to capture light. The building that houses temporary residences for investigators is the one that presents itself as formally simpler, it has a plan that is partitioned in four units and a sloped roof covered in the same stone as the exterior walls. Each one of the façades suffered volumetric subtraction. Those perforations in the volume were covered in wood and allow the penetration of light and the access to each of the units. There is a height hierarchy established between the four spaces, related to each of the unit’s solar orientation. The project intends, according to its authors, “evoke architecture and the landscape of the Azores, searching through form and material to incorporate a collective memory of the island in the archipelago”.
