The Vila Belga project followed different principles from the other working-class neighborhoods built at the time. The Vila was inserted into the central context of the city of Santa Maria, seeking to enhance the individuality and quality of life of its residents. This proposal for Iconicidades Santa Maria seeks to highlight this approach, bringing continuity and connectivity to the re-signification of this area of high community, economic and educational potential.
The new building is set back in order to respect the character of the original façades of the Vila. This measure also creates an area of public-private interaction that allows urban appropriation to be extended into the proposed site. The new building is located close to the northern boundary of the plot, leaving the space to the south free for public interaction with the classrooms and appropriation of the renovated bleacher structure at the back of the plot in front of a generous paved area that can easily be transformed into a stage or arena, also viewed from the school’s marquee.
The project uses materiality and features that allow for a subtle relationship with Art Deco, the predominant architectural style in the historic buildings in the central region of the municipality. The transparencies are significant, but they don’t overpower the opaque mass, avoiding any oversimplification of the duality between old and new architecture. The curved walls – which are therefore self-supporting and able to receive compressive loads – and the other façades of the new building are proposed by reusing the solid bricks from the demolition of the non-heritage annexes currently attached to the Club. As well as providing good thermal and acoustic performance, this approach seeks to establish material links with the memory of the site – an architecture of continuity.
