Location
Porto, Portugal
Miramar Tower
Residential
2019
Size
6000 m2
Collaboration
GEG, Mir,
Fusão, P4
Type
Commission
Status
Ongoing,
In Construction
Spiral accuracy and singularity
Standing out for its uniqueness and punctuality in the landscape and for its proximity to the sea in proportion and dimension, it is similar to the buildings in Pasteleira Park to the north but otherwise completely distinctive in its concept and themes. Evidencing a structuralist matrix, the design scheme overlaps dwellings that seem to be founded and related to the soil, moving away from the idea of multi-family housing and approaching that of single-family housing in height. The vertical dendriform section resembles the Johnson Wax Building by Frank Lloyd Wright. The floors, organized with one or two rooms, build a spiral speech, formally moved and animated, where the apparent rotation and modelling of the terraces at 360 degrees give it a visual and real sense of verticality.
Each house has its own individuality with a surrounding terrace and garden. An ideological and dreamlike representation between land and sky, between city and sea. Between the fluidity of the common spaces that are lost in the interior-exterior relationship and even in the distant horizon and the compartmentalization of the rooms, the uses are privileged by the exception. On the ground floor, an atrium associated to other uses has natural vegetation providing a microclimate of biodiversity linked to the natural surroundings. Between a revivalism that evokes the tower and the notions of total space as total life, capable of absorbing the environment that surrounds it, a vigorous and proud image of its scale is obtained.





Concept Diagram,
Approach & Development
The balconies are the visible part of the tower’s structure. They act as an exoskeleton, which extends unevenly on each floor and deconstructs the interior rationality.



We needed 50 promoters until we could find someone who, with the boldness and sufficient ambition, agreed to develop housing typologies with more than 200 square meters of balcony areas per floor.
Floor Plans
The Miramar Tower is almost a perfect storm in a unique landscape to design and add a tower.






In a tower with a strong aesthetic drive, it is these panoramic and dynamic balconies that create both the concept theme and the opportunity for the plastic and sculptural exercise that was conceived entirely in concrete. We wanted something potentially unrepeatable… a habitable sculpture.


