The work displayed represents a response which consists of designing a place of exchange and interaction for the community of Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal, on a site that sits elegantly along the Douro River.
In keeping with the Unit’s interrelated predominant themes, route, transition, and room, Unit 4 collaboratively studied Alvaro Siza’s works in the aim of understanding his approach to architecture, formal expression, and spatiality which in turn drove the narrative of my final project.
An inclusive building that embraces coexistence, religious tolerance, and a social openness amongst Christianity, Judaism and Islam, during a critical time of hostility and oppression in the world, where we yearn for this kind of union now more than ever.
Using different mediums such as painting, casting and collage making, my work strived to rethink these spaces and present them in an abstract yet respective manner to the religious liturgies. This intuitive process developed into an idiosyncratic methodology for each of our projects as a means to represent our architectural ideas.