just [another] day at school

1609 hrs

We are at the Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidad do Porto (Porto School of Architecture). It is a series of buildings designed by Alvaro Siza Vieira. The University of Porto granted a new location in another parish of the city, Massarelos. Álvaro Siza was commissioned to design the premises for the newly independent faculty, which were completed in 1992. It is considered to be one of the most exhausting schools of architecture in the whole of Europe.

I sketched these towers while on site. They seemed to me the most celebrated part of the school's design. 

Now our main purpose here was to interact with the students and ask them about the history or the possibilities to design a master plan for the area. 
We met a couple of students there, namely... Eduardo Veigaa and Nuno Silva and tried to gather some information regarding our purpose. They told us how their roots were strongly connected with River Douro.

Apart from reading the history of the school on the internet I tried to analyze its facade designs and came up with this drawing below:

Talking faces for the facade's study.

It was not a very fine day to photograph the school premise but I am sure if it would have been sunny the story of the towers would have been different as well.

The towers are simple unembellished spaces, identical from one floor to the next, one tower to the next. The only distinguished features are the windows. Variations on the theme of the towers were based on the existing apartment blocks built in 1950s just behind the school and Siza wanted to pay a tribute to them. His buildings has always been a reaction to their surroundings, as he does not want them to be isolated.

Ps: I have made a movie of my visit to the school. I am not sure when will I go there again but this video will be something that will keep me reminding of the time. 

Just [another] day at school. from Sameer Aftab on Vimeo.