African project
Sapiens Building – Angola
The Sapiens Building (Polytechnic Institute of Science and
Technology) in Angola by COSTALOPES is located in a still semi-
industrial area, on an intermediate topographic platform between
the northern limit of downtown, not far from Luanda’s port and
the Central Railway Station, and the bottom of the cliff just bellow
the residential neighbourhood of Miramar. The wedge-shaped
site borders two existing towers, one residential, and the other
containing offices. Photography by Fabrice Fouillet.
vigorous in
urban
presence
T
he situation was very challenging considering the
implantation on a wedge plot, next to Rua dos Municípios
Portugueses, already very compacted by two towers, one
of offices with 14 floors and the other of housing with 20
floors.
The polyhedral volume occupies the available plot
completely. On one hand, its abstraction fits better to
the close proximity of the towers and, despite its six
floors, guarantees its formal firmness. On the other
hand, enhance the concrete structure, the galleries in continuous
parietal and surgical tear dramatize the polyhedral whole, become
tropicalized mediators of light and shadow, allow the views over the
city and deliver an elegant urban vibration.
Finally, this same tearing denounces the firm rationalization and
public fluidity of the educational program, unified between the
peripheral galleries and the circulatory heart of the building, and
between the cafeteria on the roof terrace and the ground floor open
to the exterior, with the public mission being celebrated in the big
auditorium.
The Sapiens Building transforms the contingencies to its own
advantage, vigorous in urban presence and generous in public
ethics. AD
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