2020 -... bairro boavista church, lisbon

Bairro da Boavista Church and São José da Boavista Social and Parish Center, Lisbon

The aggregating vocation of the place gives rise to the creation of a public square formed by a wall-building that extends to the east, defining the limit through recesses and advances where stairs and ramps overcome the unevenness of the site, closing the north side. Through this single piece, that adjusts to each circumstance, the square is established at street level and the spaces at a high level are ordered, enabling the transition and housing, in the process, an important part of the program.

The volume of the church is placed in a central point of the new square, in an elevated position, loose from the ground, placed between heaven and earth, evoking God and ascension – forming a covered square below, a place of welcome and stay in an environment protected from excessive sun and rain.

Overlooking the square, beside the Parish Center´s volume that stands out here, the churchyard establishes itself as an intermediate level that reserves a protected and proper place for the church, with a unique vocation. The church itself combines the traditional proportion of a single nave with the Vatican Council's guidelines of strict non-separation between the assembly and the presbytery. Thus, a predominant orientation is combined with the shape of the assembly that finds its liturgical center of reference on the altar. The aim is to achieve a certain spatial verticality while looking for a clear hierarchy between the main nave and the side nave, which, in its development, structures a more secluded space and organizes the places for the baptistery, at the entrance, and for the confessional, at the opposite top.

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION - 1st PRIZE

architecture

Pedro Matos Gameiro, João Favila Menezes (coordination)

design team

Miguel Feijóo, Teresa Mateus

liturgical consultancy

Fr. João Norton

landscape architecture

Filipa Menezes

structural engineer

João Paulo Cardoso

HVAC air treatment and thermal conditioning