Text description provided by the architects. After the progress of the projects of the Library, the Auditorium and the Tourist office - all projects designed by CG+LSC office - it became evident the necessity of the design and development of landscaping that will bring definition, framework and access to all these buildings.
Although the land where these buildings are implanted is largely delimited by pathways and therefore perfectly independent, the truth is that it relates closely with Quinta do Aido which is contiguous to it. Actually, both are part of an extensive and very visible hillside, which, with a new street and the buildings that are to deploy along its route, needed an urgent treatment to give the village of Cinfães a more qualified urbanity.
The site where the Tourist office is build is a farm, north facing - as all Cinfães Village - which has excellent prospects on the Douro valley and a steep topography. Quinta do Aido, on the other hand, is the natural extension of this land to the west, with the aggravating circumstance of topography be even more complex, having a narrow and steep "valley bottom" that extends over large slopes with severe pending, difficult access and dense vegetation.
The particular location of this new set, with special emphasis to the Tourist Office, is an opportunity to enhance and qualify space, while generating a symbolic and functional centrality.
The Tourist office seeks to articulate, in a complex way, the various spaces to which it relates. It defines an element which is enigmatic and gains importance as a place of urban interface and communication with the village and their visitors.
The program is relatively simple. The entrance is high and at the bottom of this wide space we can find the employee`s desk.
This monumental piece, presented as an unequivocal sign of modernity, strongly illuminated, also marks its presence by color and its material, which is made of plate cut by laser, forming certainly a attractive element in the region.
