Elementary School of Paredes de Coura
Filipa Castro Guerreiro, Tiago Freitas de Macedo Correia,
Bruno Acácio Ferreira Figueiredo

The design is the result of a public invitation to tender seeking a response to the municipality's option of assembling in a single building all the children attending the first stage of basic education in the district.

The building was developed based on a strategic fragmentation of volumes (structured by a system of inner routes unfolding in two floors by means of ramps), so as to fulfil three basic requisites: Enhancing the typical local scales by incorporating the set of school volumes into the urban relations and asserting their presence, whilst, on the other hand, trying to dilute them in the landscape among rural fragmentations.

Easy perception of the building's scale by the children, exploring the school spaces in a close relationship with the children's scale by means of several small volumes rather than one large-sized volume.

Clear programmatic organisation, where each volume fulfils a programme.

 Project Escola Básica do 1º Ciclo de Paredes de Coura
 Location Paredes de Coura
 Project 2000 (concurso)
 Building 2002/2004
 Architects Filipa de Castro Guerreiro, Tiago Freitas de Macedo Correia, Bruno Acácio Ferreira de Figueiredo (NO arquitectos e Susana Mota Freitas, competition period)
 Collaborators Mathilde Bauchet
 Client Câmara Municipal de Paredes de Coura
 Photo Pedro Alves