Vale D’Algares Hotel

Description

In plain consolidated area of Vila Chã de Ourique there is the construction lot where the hotel Vale D’Algares is to be implanted. It is but a set of parcels assembled together in a single project territory, where there’s a will to build a superior quality development which includes a wine production complex (Vale D’Algares and Guarda Rios) as well as a 5-star Hotel/spa, complemented by several areas destined to welcome different sorts of events.

The presence of long and large agriculture buildings constitutes the place’s most prominent characteristic. We began from this specific feature, and from assuming the typology’s potential: long “pavilions” that, when juxtaposed side by side, as we can find in many waterfront regions such as Lisbon or Gaia (Port Wine cellars), constitute wide and flexible spaces adequate for the design of a hotel and, in this specific case, with the added quality of contextualizing the new building amongst the existing ones.

The insertion of the new building is achieved by filling the available area at the far southwest of the lot, through a series of “pavilions” set side by side. These new volumes, of variable sizes, come to extend the lines of the pre-existent buildings and the remaining space between them is to be filled with other volumes, from which a bigger one, destined to contain the main entrance and lobby, stands out.
At the far southeast, the pre-existent building is thus partially absorbed, or “contaminated” by this logic, for rooms are to added to its roof, registered by the presence of distinct materials, adequate for this new intervention.

Through a process of volumetric “erosion” of these pavilions, we design the missing boundaries of the large central courtyard as we configure the new gardened courtyard, of irregular features, between the hotel and street Mariano de Carvalho, at southwest. Between the two yards, central references in the hotel organization, a set of “interstitial” spaces between the juxtaposed buildings will perform as stretched yards establishing continuity lines between the two main courtyards.

At last, as a defining feature of the hotel’s image, we mention the gardened terraces of the bedrooms. As the prevailing means of taking advantage of natural light, the rooms, all located on the first floor, will access terraces, this way allowing direct contact with nature, as well as a stronger intimate and sophisticated atmosphere.