Site Landmark
"Site Landmark" is the name of an international competition to develop ideas for the design of a contemporary Site Landmark located on a site promontory in Sagres, Algarve, Portugal.
Our proposal aims to offer a completely different experience of the landscape through an Architecture.
A new experience means to us, above all, to give preferred views. Indeed from each point above the cliff it’s usually possible to contemplate the whole area and panorama, so we decided instead to offer pre-established views. Our project wants to frame the three essential elements of this landscape: the sky, the ocean and the rock.
In the meantime we decided to excavate the cliff, shaping the rock to create a theatre and giving the site a new function able to exalt the relation between the audience and the nature, between the public and the sound of the ocean, the wind and the sunlight. The Architecture and the Landscape are here complementary.
Descending through the theatre, it frames the sky while arriving in the heart of the cliff.
Behind the scene, there is a real cave with rough surfaces. We are inside the cliff, surrounded by the rock in a space dominated by the light and dark contrast. Going down a few more stairs we arrive into three different rooms, each of these has spectacular openings to the ocean and a unique point of view. The relation with the ocean is here deep and intimate.
On the top of the cliff, using the rock previously dug out, we built an arcade to frame the different views of Sagres and Cape st. Vincent, creating a dialogue and a visual connection between them.
Last but not least we reached our objective to do not bring or use anything foreign to the site. We shaped the theatre excavating the rock and we used the same material to build the arcade. There are no windows nor electric system, no maintenance needed because the whole project will grow old with the cliff, covered with spontaneous plants, more and more integrated with the site.
As a result of our choice the project has two different facades: one of these is rough, dark, introverse and coincides with the profile of the cliff; the other one is opened, bright and smooth.
This is the project of a path that descends from the light on the top of the cliff, to the darkness in the heart of the rock, arriving again to the light, closer to the ocean.