Competition: Câmara Municipal de Matosinhos (shortlisted)
Facts +
Area
8 700 m²
Site
7 400 m²
Location
Matosinhos, Portugal
Years
Competition 2023
Status
Competition
Client
Competition: Câmara Municipal de Matosinhos (shortlisted)
Materials
Concrete
Cork
Brass
Structural engineer
Arcwright Structures
Collaborators
Kader Acoustics
Lux Interval (lighting)
Awards
—
Photographer
Monolith Studio
Facts
Area
8 700 m²
Site
7 400 m²
Location
Matosinhos, Portugal
Years
Competition 2023
Status
Competition
Client
Competition: Câmara Municipal de Matosinhos (shortlisted)
Materials
Concrete
Cork
Brass
Structural engineer
Arcwright Structures
Collaborators
Kader Acoustics
Lux Interval (lighting)
Awards
—
Photographer
Monolith Studio
The Câmara Municipal de Matosinhos held a competition in 2023 for a concert hall of 1 200 seats behind the fishing harbour. The hall would serve visiting orchestras and ensembles as well as the town's own bands and choirs, on a site of 7 400 m² between the harbour and the streets behind it. Matosinhos is a working harbour, and the site sits among its cranes. Our entry proposes 8 700 m².
A stack
The entry proposes the hall as a stack of concrete boxes. The foyer box sits on the ground and is open on all sides. It would hold the ticket desk, the bars, a rehearsal room and a public route from the harbour to the town, open through the day whether or not there is a concert. The hall box sits on top of it, offset 6 m towards the harbour, so that its underside forms a covered entrance. Section A–A (S-301) shows the two boxes and the offset between them.
Fig. 02The hall box sits on the foyer box, offset 6 m.Visualisation: Monolith Studio
Arcwright Structures developed a scheme in which the hall box is carried on four concrete cores rising through the foyer, which also hold the stairs, lifts and services. Between the cores the foyer is free of columns.
Sound
Inside, the hall is a shoebox, the proportion Kader Acoustics recommended for the range of music the town programmes. Its walls are concrete cast with deep reveals, and the reveals are filled with cork panels of different depths that absorb or scatter sound where the acoustic model asks for it. Brass is used for rails, seat ends and door furniture. The concrete would use a low-cement mix with local aggregates, developed from the studio's research in the Lisbon office.
Fig. 03Acoustic study: cork panels in the concrete reveals.Visualisation: Monolith Studio
The hall box would rest on the cores through acoustic bearings, so that neither the harbour traffic nor the bar below could be heard in a quiet passage. Section B–B (S-302) cuts across the hall and shows where the two boxes meet.
One box for sound and one box for people. The entry is the decision to stack them, and the 6 m between them.
Bruno Pacheco, architectural graduate
Shortlisted
The entry was shortlisted. The foyer would be the most used part of the building: by people crossing from the harbour, by the town's choirs rehearsing, and by the audience before and after. After dark, Lux Interval's lighting would leave the hall box unlit and the foyer bright, so that from the breakwater the town would see a heavy block resting on a band of light, and at the interval the audience gathered beneath it. Kwame Mensah's acoustic and daylight models from the competition are now part of the studio's working tools.
Fig. 01Competition visualisation from the harbour.Visualisation: Monolith Studio
Fig. 04Visualisation: interval.Visualisation: Monolith Studio
Fig. 05Visualisation from the breakwater.Visualisation: Monolith Studio
Level
100%
Not to scale
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Ground floor plan of Matosinhos Sound Hall at 1:200. Walls in solid black (400 mm concrete), openings as breaks with glazing lines, structural grid lettered and numbered; spaces: foyer, stage door.
