Parque Terra Nostra - Ticket Offices, Shop and Changing Rooms
Located in the Furnas valley, on the Azorean island of São Miguel, Terra Nostra Park is one of the protagonists of the island's landscape history. Since the end of the 18th century, successive owners have extended the park, adding to its landscape and botanical value. The large thermal water tank, surrounded by
araucaria trees, remains in the local collective memory.
In 2019, the current owner commissioned new facilities to support visitors. Pursuing a design evocative of the landscape tradition of Western gardens - from greenhouses to follies - the intervention sought to be conceptually more ‘gardenesque’ and less ‘architectural’. Crossing with endogenous references, such as the concave in the turret of the Casa do Parque and the convex on the façade of the Casa do Jardineiro, it sought to maintain the romantic-picturesque matrix established in the 19th century.
The new Ticket Office extends the front of the forest that flanks the access road to blend in with the vegetation. The extension of the front is materialised with a metal mesh in three successive concave recesses. The middle one is like an exedra, formalising an exterior antechamber.
With openings that recall the follies of Turkish tents, the net is a curtain that envelops the visitor inside the forest. Behind the curtain, two iron and glass volumes contain the Ticket Office and a small Exhibition Room.
The Shop is surrounded by woodland, making it a lively panorama inside and a discreet object outside.
The Changing Rooms for the tank are covered by a concrete vault that harks back to the grottos. Taking advantage of the difference in elevation of the terrain, the vault opens to the east onto the garden in successive curves - the longest one surrounds a Taxodium distichum, the next goes round the jacuzzis and the third sticks up from the slope.
The concave arcade is opposed by the convex compartments that house the changing rooms, showers and sanitary facilities. In the changing rooms, a crescent-shaped opening in the vault lets in light and cascading plants.
The cavities in the vault evoke the pumice of the explosive volcanism of the Furnas Valley.
The East Ticket Office serves large groups.
