Carvalho Araújo Private School
José Manuel Carvalho Araújo

The school was designed in an 18th century farm, in Braga.

It includes the class rooms, social and administrative areas and the sports pavilion. The interior of the house was adapted, and includes the canteen/bar and the connection to the class-room module. In the ground floor, the atrium, the multipurpose rooms, the secretary and the offices. In the attic, a library. The new building begins at zero level, becoming a semi-buried U-shaped building, respecting the existing configuration of the plot. The building has an initial blind section, where windows start appearing. These are the entrances of natural light for the class rooms, openings that always coincide with voids on the ground that provide light onto the corridors of the inferior floors. This was an exercise of great rigidity.

The program of class-rooms is repetitive, not only due to its own nature but because of the adopted system, and the selection of materials reflects a great contention of costs.

 Project Externato Carvalho Araújo
 Date 2003
 Architect José Manuel Carvalho Araújo
 Collaborators Daniel Silva, Manuel Ribeiro, Nuno Capa, Pedro América, Pedro Macedo, Raul Carvalhais, Sandra Ferreira
 Client Externato Carvalho Araújo
 Photo Pedro Lobo