2004, the year of registration of the brand-name Contaminar Studio, marked the beginning of a studio intended to be a gold standard in the field of contemporary architecture. The idea was to create a working team, in which ideas could merge in joint artistic objectives. This idea arose during the team’s academic training in ARCA | EUAC – Escola Universitária das Artes de Coimbra. Based partly in the Bauhaus spirit and developed through the Faculty’s own structure, this studio draws from the pluridisciplinarity of its founders (architecture and design) and maintains relationships with collaborators from other artistic fields.
The trailer is courtesy of Vitor Gabriel.
More information about the film after the break.
The goal in this process is to draw, create and control the architectonic object as a whole from the point of implementation, through development by the architect and finally through to the design phase. On initiation of a process, the first thing to come to awareness is fear. Such fear is formed in the apprehension of human action in changing the original features of ground and environment. This means that negative outcomes can sometimes be hard wounds to heal. Respect for the environment and heritage is a premise of the working method in this studio. Ongoing client-contact and on-site work are thus essential in order to ensure perfection in every detail.
In Contaminar, the whole process of ideological conception is set to respect the spatial experiences of the clients and ensure that the final outcome is a balance between the spatial harmony and the architectonic aesthetics. In this process of conceptual construction, the mock-up has a role of extreme importance as a tool for work and study. It is through the mock up that the mutation of bi-dimensional into three-dimensional comes together and we can begin to control another crucial factor to the Studio – the Light.
Therefore, the signature of a Contaminar project is a constructive blend between inhabitable spaces with spaces of Light (Natural and Artificial), relationship of scales and tensions created by sets of contrasts and emotions.
