Restaurant & Tea House by Francisco Portugal e Gomes

This work is in the top of Antas, on the south side overlooking the valley Campanhã. Studies point out that this place existed megalithic funerary monuments (dolmens), but this is one of the city of Oporto that has suffered most from the successive transformations of recent decades, such as building a new stadium Dragon, inserted at the level of detail of Antas (1999-2003), designed by Risco, and construction of roads crossing the Via de Cintura Interna / Antas, which occurred in the 80′s. The latter resulted in the demolition of the northern half of the street Vasques de Mesquita and part of the southern half.

In the early 50′s, football supporters Clube do Porto met in this place to watch the games (from outside) in the old Antas Stadium, now demolished, and its author the architect Francisco Oldemiro Carneiro. This time also there is a house designed by the architect, at an early stage of modernity, rooted in the rock outcrop, with a cover intervita and surrounded by native vegetation. The “spirit of place” has been taken into account in the difficult marriage between recent and ancestral memory: the first, connected with the game (natural bank, compared to a field where sports events take place), and the second referred to the evocation of megalithic dolmens missing (created by access to the gallery, camera, and the capstone in the balance, supported on vertical supports.)

In this “delicate” union was born the intervention on the lot, which, although it depends on the street is mainly manifested in the relationship that seeks to establish with the interior of the block, where the light is very good, the vegetation is varied and are the gardens of the houses. From these, you can see the landscape is intersected by a step into the void, in a diagonal line, which encourages the whole garden and movement in space. In this context and in relation to the discrepancy introduced by the program, tried to respect the bloc’s internal peace and to evoke the memory in spiritual and ancestral memory.

In an initial purpose of a functional restoration of the entire lot, the work includes the rehabilitation and expansion of a two-tier urban construction, built in the first half of the twentieth century, and the reordering of the landscape garden. The interior of the existing building, on the ground floor was renovated into a restaurant and at the place where a unit within completely demolished, a new building was designed for a “Tea House”. From the existing gap, equivalent to a flat, two links were established between the area covered and outer space, one on the outside, through the courtyard, and indoor, through a covered arcade in the basement where there is a garden surrounded by a bamboo fence

The ground floor is arranged with an articulation between the dining room next to the restaurant, near the street, and the service counter area, as close to the patio connected to the garden. The area of transport which followed the expansion of the existing building has a staircase which ensures plenty of light in the gallery basement, functional and spatial link between the two plants. The new building of the “Tea House”, a device designed with white concrete and black slate Valongo, aims to evoke both the memory of the ancestors’ dolmen “as the” bank “for the big game, which is manifested balance the wide coverage through the light. This device is formally become a pergola shade it produces in the glass, along with the building structure of the tea house, fills the void of the lower volumetric minimizes the impact of higher buildings near it by creating a protected environment that favors the stillness and contemplation.