1916/1970. Seen from a distance from the historic centre and as one approaches it, one understands that the main value of the former Fábrica de Leões factory complex is, oddly enough, its excessive volume that is imposed abruptly on the plateau. Buildings designed around the machines they would house, and not around people, in physical or transcendental terms, the people being reduced to mere operators, workers, simple cogs in the machine.
ORIGINAL PROGRAMME. Built in 1916, the Sociedade Alentejana de Moagem company became the Leões pasta factory in the 1970s.
2006/2009. A partially occupied but machine-less building, appropriated by man. Spaces that, due to their dimensions, versatility and relationship with the territory, became places for teaching.
NEW PROGRAMME. University of the arts, department of visual arts and department of architecture
[-]subtraction. The annexes that were not part of the original construction were removed, as were all provisional construction inside the building. The spatial nature of the buildings became clear.
[ ]addition. A building is added that substitutes the annexes, thus configuring the courtyard afresh, with associated workshops, a cafeteria and a lean-to.
To the existing spaces were added infrastructures that provide the necessary conditions for teaching, and furniture.
[re]utilize. Increasing knowledge of old industrial spaces and their operating systems reveals a number of strategies that we can reuse in the construction of the schools. First of all there are the large coverings that protected the railway platform and other loading and unloading areas, which could hardly contrast more in their delicate lightness with the enormous mass of the constructions. Now re--introduced, it shelters teachers and students instead of products and raw materials, constructing the meeting place par excellence of the school ensemble, it outlines the main patio establishing a visual relationship between all the spaces of the complex, whose central open space is an unexpected green field which is reminiscent of university campuses, until now so far removed from this context. A kind of backbone that allows bodies that were previously isolated to function once more, becoming part of a single structure.|

PROJECT NAME:
Art and Architecture Faculty, Évora University

LOCATION:
Évora, Portugal

PROJECT PHASES:
Design date: 2006/2009
Completion date: second stage under construction

DESIGN TEAM:
Architecture:
Inês Lobo Arquitectos Lda. com with Ventura Trindade Arquitectos Lda.

Teams:
Inês Lobo, João Rosário, Gilberto Reis, Pedro Oliveira, Julia Varela, João Vaz, Sérgio Pereira, Rafael Marques, Emanuel Romão, Filipe Soares, Sónia Ribeiro, João Maria Trindade, Chiara Ternullo, Nuno Marcos, Lourenço Van Innis, Filipe Carvalho, Filipe Nunes, Nélson Rodrigues, Bruno Banha, Rita Figueiredo

TECHNICAL DESIGN AND BUILDING CONSULTANCY:
Structural Engineering:
Pedro Morujão, ADF Engenheiros Consultores

Electrical, Telecommunications and Safety Installations:
Ruben Sobral

Hydraulics:
Marta Azevedo, BETAR Engenheiros Consultores

Heating, Ventilation, Air Condicioning, Renewables, Thermics and Acoustics:
Guilherme Carrilho da Graça, NATURALWORKS

Landscape Architecture (Design):
João Gomes da Silva, GLOBAL Arquitectura Paisagista

Project Revision, Measurements, Budgeting:
Rui Prata Ribeiro, Lda. Serviços de Engenharia

PHOTOGRAPHS:
Leonardo Finotti