UNA barbara e valentim

CAPES Headquarters

1/8

On the smooth plateau page

Architecture writes its own landscape

(Sophia de Mello Breyner)

 

This project results from a reflection on Brasília, plan and reality.

 

The site, located in Asa Norte – Setor de Grandes Áreas, is close to the monumental axis and the Lake. The proposal is an intervention in this territory, independent of the land division, which confirms the idea of the ground as public space, a characteristic of the city.

Faced with the need for a large parking area, the option was made for a construction on several levels of subsoil that emerges forming a platform as an unfolding of the ground.

The subtle slope of the terrain allowed direct access from the main road to the building at the lowest level. It is on this level that the entire collective use program is distributed, with large meeting rooms and auditorium, important for an institution supporting research. A water mirror organizes the horizontal circulation. The café, as an island, enables a crossing that connects the two accesses, lower and upper, inside the building. The articulation with the rest of the program is done vertically, through three voids that allow a visual apprehension of all levels.

Above is the garden that, in continuity with the public areas, guarantees access from the street above.

 

All the offices, of more restricted use, are elevated, arranged in three bars. Only one of them touches the base, in this intersection is located the restaurant, which extends to the garden. The kitchen is strategically close to an internal street, facilitating loading and unloading. This street connects the two access roads to the lot and houses the uncovered parking spaces, avoiding cars between the sidewalk and the building. Also on the platform, light boxes were placed below the suspended volumes, in order to illuminate the large rooms on the lower floor.

The survey reveals that the cut in the terrain will be made over soil with little compaction, indicating the depth of the garages as an adequate solution to approach the foundations. The structure establishes a single grid of pillars for all spaces, characterizing the construction as a single whole. Both the office and parking garage slabs are designed as planes capable of supporting the flexibility of the uses.

The exception is only the auditorium and the café, which require larger column intervals to accommodate the program. The auditorium, which can be divided, dips downstairs to ensure visibility for the five hundred spectators.

 

Thus, the longer bar structurally functions as a tube that allows the span to bend at this base and projects the overhanging volume over the landscape, indicating ample views towards the dawn. Small openings were arranged in the longitudinal walls to ensure lighting and ventilation of the internal environments, while respecting the orthogonal and diagonal axes of the tube structure. On two floors were grouped the Presidency and the Management Directory.

The twin bars house the other directorates and intercommunicate through small bridges. In counterpoint to the tube, they face north and south, providing complementary views to the whole.

Infrastructural towers run vertically through all floors, containing pressurized safety staircases, elevators, installation ducts, and restrooms.

The project seeks to establish a mediation between the various scales of the city: the complex is placed as a construction of the landscape; the implantation indicates the particularities of the site, revealing a place that conjugates the public sphere and seclusion.

 

Place

Brasília, DF

Project start date

2007

Architecture

UNA arquitetos: Cristiane Muniz, Fábio Valentim, Fernanda Barbara e Fernando Viégas

Collaborators

Ana Paula de Castro, José Carlos, Jimmy Liendo, Luiz Eduardo Loiola Menezes, Maria Cristina Motta