Architects: Nuno Brandão Costa     Photography: Francisco Ascensão     Construction Period:  2016-2022     Location:  Porto, Portugal

The work, of the still called Quinta do Mitra, is an integral part of the project for the Campanhã’s Bus Terminal (TIC). Its outer space is an integral part of, as well as an extension of the public natural park that already involves all this intervention. It goes from the south area, next to the Ceres Factory, and it extends along the entire TIC building, stretching eastwards to Rua do Bonjoia up to the site of the former Quinta do Mitra, with access via a pedestrian bridge, at the north end of the TIC complex. The pre-existing building of an extensive Quinta that was, over time, successively and very closely involved by large mobility infrastructures (the railway, the ring road and now the TIC), was completely abandoned, not fully functional, in ruins and in an advanced state of structural degradation, close to collapse.

The TIC project envisaged its reconstruction in order to make it a functional building, to confer an urban sense to it and make it an active player in the new functional and infrastructural surrounding context. The architectural proposal focused on the integral preservation of the existing stone walls, maintaining the condition in which they were found, the appearance of a ruin, reconfiguring their spaces for a new programmatic and multipurpose functionality: Transformed it into a municipal services building, complying with the new spatial, constructive and infrastructural requirements.

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