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LISBON UNIVERSITY'S FACULTY OF SCIENCES – C6 BUILDING (1993-2003)
The campus of the Faculty of Sciences consisted of a compact set of buildings restricting the landscape of the university area to a network of interstice circulation roads and car parking, underlining its sideway situation to Lisbon and the Cidade Universitária. Housing five different departments of the Faculty of Sciences, the C6 Building creates a system of public spaces – a square, a boulevard and a garden-patio – which redefine life on campus and its relationship with the city.
The square is set up as a "terreiro" surrounded by outdoor galleries connecting atriums, auditoriums and the cafeteria, and overlooked by the teaching rooms located in the upper floors. The square is prolonged through the main atrium into the garden-patio, which opens westwards and is characterised by the presence of the main staircase. The galleries surrounding the building open out onto the city, to the South, and accompany the boulevard eastwards along a lower wing, which contains the teaching and leisure spaces shared by all departments.
The boulevard, a tree lined gravel floored garden, lends structure to the whole campus, articulates the several new and old buildings and, through a system of walls, staircases and ramps requalifies the existing interstitial roadways as streets, acting as a suspended walkway.
The design sets up a system of wall profiles, on which variations are exploited in order to give scale to the public spaces they confine, whilst they organize internally the great diversity of spaces they contain. The building walls are made of smoothly coated and painted concrete, ending in sharp edges. The garden walls are made of sandy and white rough cast concrete.
The trees of the surrounding garden – oaks, pear-trees and an old eucalyptus, in the boulevard; zimbro bushes and a group of two oaks and an ash tree, in the patio; poplars and lotus enfolding the other façades – provide a counterpoint to the sharp presence of the C6 Building.
Design Team:
Architecture: José Neves with Francisco Freire (until the construction design phase)
Collaborators: Rui Leão, Nuno Silva (until the design development phase); Ana Vicente, Pedro Abreu, Alberto Vinagre, Paulo Barreto e João Pernão (until the construction design phase); Rui Sousa Pinto, Jaime Barbosa, Paulo Martinho, Kathrin Teichert (construction phase); Maria Capelo (colour consultant)
Landscaping: José Neves with Rui Sousa Pinto, Jaime Barbosa, Maria Vladimira and Global (João Gomes da Silva with Catarina Raposo)
Awards and Nominations:
Nominated SECIL Architecture Award 2004
1st Prize in the Public Competition for the C6 Building Project – Departments of Mathematics, Geology, Informatics and Statistics - Lisbon University's Faculty of Sciences
Publications:
TOUSSAINT, Michel (ed.), Edifício C6, in Guia de Arquitectura de Lisboa (1948-2011), A+A Books, Lisboa, 2013, p.123
CAMPOS, Nuno e MATOS, Patrícia (ed.s), Edifício C6, in Guia de Arquitectura – Sul e Ilhas, Traço Alternativo – Arquitectos Associados Lda., Porto, 2011, p.110
José Neves, Edifício C6 – Facultad de Ciencias de la Universidad de Lisboa, in Piso, Revista de Arquitectura e Cultura Urbana, nº 09, Invierno 2006, México, p. 51-54
LAND, Carsten, Pase de Estafeta en Tiempos Difíciles, in pp37-42, Piso, Revista de Arquitectura e Cultura Urbana, nº 09, Invierno 2006, México, p. 37-42
LAND, Carsten, HUCKING, Klaus e TRIGUEIROS, Luiz (ed.s), Edifício C6, in Arquitectura em Lisboa e Sul de Portugal desde 1974, Blau, Lisboa, 2005, p. 322-323
Edifício C6 da Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa in Catálogo Prémio Secil de Arquitectura 2004, Ordem dos Arquitectos e SECIL, 2005
GRAÇA DIAS, Manuel, À Volta do Pátio Calmo, in 30 Exemplos (Arquitectura Portuguesa no Virar do Século), Relógio de Água, Lisboa, 2004, p.217-223
GRAÇA DIAS, Manuel, À Volta do Pátio Calmo, in Expresso, nº 1611, 13 de Setembro de 2003, p. 40-41
Edifício C6 e Alameda da Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, in Anuário de Arquitectura 6, Estar, 2003, p. 100-109
CARRILHO DA GRAÇA, João Luís, Tímpanos, Concurso Público de Estudo Prévio para o Edifício C6 - Departamentos de Matemática, Geologia, Informática e Estatística - Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa in Jornal Arquitectos, nº 131, 1994, p. 20-23