The naturalness with which the original building clings to the sloping terrain comes not only from the geometry of the implantation and the use of materials but also from the sloping roof that reinforces the sense of topography. (…) The presence of the built almost reduces itself to the sloping plane that rises from the ground and that is finally discovered as a (partly) usable roof because it has been converted into an athletics track. On arrival, this feeling of a raised floor is underlined by the glazed façade that emphasises the gap and returns, in reflection, the construction of the moderns and the nature that lies beyond the walls of Serralves.
The intervention is bigger than it looks, having managed to double the built-up area until then, through the strategy of burying the volume of the building. The entrance is via a large ramped staircase that dips into the ground and uncovers links to the lower elevation, namely the courtyard sunk by high concrete walls and which extends a multi-purpose room, defined by two glazed walls with large sliding panels, mediating interior and exterior with ‘thickness of space’.
(…)
From a construction point of view, the building supports formal simplicity, presenting reinforced concrete walls that allow the earth retaining structures and the large overhangs necessary for the glazing. (…)
The playgrounds are populated by prefabricated concrete circles, rings that are presented as benches or tree boilers, blocks that become meeting points or evoke giant games of “pataca”.
Texto by Pedro Castro Cruz in Building views: Jofebar-PanoramaAH! / ed. Carlos Machado e Moura: Circo de Ideias, 2017