Preis der Europäischen Union für zeitgenössische Architektur – Mies van der Rohe Preis 2013 / Mies van der Rohe Award 2013 – EU-Prize for Contemporary Architecture

The project is based on a attentive reading of the life of a very specific kind of community, a sort of a micro-society with its own rules. It is a program, somewhere in between a hotel and a hospital, that seeks to comprehend and reinterpret the combination social/private, answering to the needs of a social life, and at the same time of solitude. Independents unities aggregate into a unique body, whose design is expressive and clear. The reduct mobility of those who will live in the building suggests that any displacement should be an emotive and variable experience. The distance between the independent units is measured and drawn to turn the idea of path into life, and its time into form.
The building, designed path, is a wall that naturally rises from the topography: it limits and defines the open space, organizing the entire plot.








Authors: Francisco Aires Mateus & Manuel Aires Mateus

Collaborators: Giacomo Brenna, Paola Marini, Anna Bacchetta, Miguel Pereira

Client: Santa Casa da Misericordia de Alcácer do Sal

Constructor: Ramos Catarino, Sa
Engineer: Engitarget, lda
Landscape architecture: ABAP Luis Alçada Batista

Date of project: 2006-2007
Date of construction: 2008-2010