2025 - sports pavilion, estremoz

Municipal Sports Pavilion, Estremoz

Along the northwestern edge of the 17th-century city wall of Estremoz, there is an area of medieval vegetable gardens, which is intended to be an urban park shared by various sports facilities located there. The first step is now being taken with the construction of the new Municipal Sports Center, which will replace the current 50-year-old, disrepaired gymnasium, incapable of meeting current requirements. The new facility will accommodate most indoor sports, but its essential purpose will always be the revival of roller hockey, the most popular sport in this Alentejo city.

The new pavilion, built on the site of its predecessor, seeks to discipline the topography with its exposed concrete walls, tracing a line in the air, horizontal and light, enclosing a quiet and orderly space, capable of serving as an extension of the landscaped areas that frame it. The roof, elegantly elevated, is lowered and suspended on four crossbeams—a direct reference to Mies van der Rohe's Crown Hall—seeking to integrate the presence of the volume in this area marked by ancient stones and walls that border and frame the complex.

This arrangement provides a connection between the two levels that coincide here, establishing a transition and using it to form two covered areas that, at its tops, connect and qualify the areas they overlook.

COMPETITION BY INVITATION - 1st PRIZE

architecture

Pedro Matos Gameiro

design team

Rafaela Matos, Rita Figueiredo, Raquel Batista Pereira,

João Bacalhau, Rita Malarranha

landscape architecture

Raquel Batista Pereira, Pedro Matos Gameiro

structural engineer

João Vaz (PointUp)

electrical engineer

João Giga