Auditorium and music school

Project: Auditorium and music school
Architect: Cossement Cardoso

Programme: Auditorium and music school

About: The proposal for the auditorium and music school of Lajes do Pico is based on an understanding of the territory as a continuous construction, where natural matter and human action overlap without rupture. The fajã on which it is situated forms a lava platform of marked horizontality, whose presence asserts itself in tension with the island’s abrupt surroundings, structuring the relationship with the horizon and the broader landscape, where Pico Mountain introduces a vertical dimension that contrasts with the extended plane of the lajido. In this context, the ground is not neutral: it is thick, constructed, and stone emerges as an active substance of the landscape.
The project acknowledges this condition and adopts it as an operative principle, proposing not the introduction of an autonomous object, but the continuation of a process, a reorganization of the existing material, “stone upon stone.” The idea of an isolated building is thus replaced by that of a system of spaces defined by relationships, boundaries, and voids, closer to a territorial construction than to an autonomous form.
The logic of Pico’s vineyard landscape is decisive in this process: just as the currais walls structure, protect, and enable the occupation of the territory, the project defines a perimeter and an internal subdivision that organize the program. The architecture materializes through a system of thick, inhabited basalt stone walls, between which courtyards emerge, playing a structuring role. The relationship between interior and exterior is mediated, with each space articulated around a courtyard that regulates exposure, noise, and scale, introducing nature into the interior in a controlled way.
Situated in a currently under-structured area along Avenida Marginal, the project operates simultaneously at territorial and urban scales, defining a new continuous frontage that organizes the relationship between the lajido, the waterfront, and the built fabric. This frontage adapts to the conditions of the site, reinforcing the connection to the sea while framing and enhancing the existing school building, integrating it into a broader system.
The exterior space is conceived as an extension of the lajido, permeable and minimally artificial, crossed by pathways that connect the waterfront to the various points of the complex. The entrance square marks a moment of transition and concentration, while the former sports field is reinterpreted as an outdoor performative space, integrated into a network of interconnected public spaces.
In this way, the project asserts itself as a continuous system in which architecture and landscape interpenetrate. Just as the stone walls of the vineyard culture transform a challenging territory into a productive system, the project’s walls also configure an active support for another form of culture, not agricultural, but social, artistic, and collective.