Porto’s Botanic Garden Won The International Architecture Award 2019 ♦ The requalification project of the Botanical Garden of Porto – Museum of Natural History and Science of the University of Porto (MHNC-UP) was one of the two winners in the category “Parks and Gardens” of the International Architecture Awards 2019, the oldest and largest celebration annual global architecture. Secrets From Portugal is here to show you all about this amazing project. If you’re coming to Porto, feel free to drop by and to see Porto’s botanic garden.
♦ Discover All About this Botanical Garden In Porto & Subscribe to Our Newsletter ♦
Oporto University (FAUP), the intervention in the set of works that integrate the Botanical Garden of Porto started in 2010 and had its last phase in 2017 with the opening of the Biodiversity Gallery – Centro Ciência Viva in Casa Andresen. The project also included the rehabilitation of Casa Salabert to host the E-learning Café – Botânico (inaugurated in 2015), as well as the restoration of greenhouses designed by Franz Koepp in the ’60s of the 20th century.
In total, the intervention involved the requalification of a gross construction area of about 4 800 m2, in a garden area with 48 500 m2.
For Nuno Valentim, coordinator of the project, “the awarding of this prize to this set of works is particularly dear to us because it gratifies a great work and effort of the group of authors [Nuno Valentim, Frederico Eça, Maria Ana S. Coutinho, Margarida Carvalho ], collaborators and teams of designers involved in the various projects. ” The FAUP professor also praised the “involvement of the MHNC-UP Director, Nuno Ferrand de Almeida, and the current Director of the Botanic Garden of Porto, Paulo Farinha Marques, who also collaborated as a designer in the exterior space component.”
It is recalled that the requalification project of the Porto Botanical Garden had already been nominated for the prestigious European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award 2019. The rehabilitation work of Casa Salabert received an honourable mention in the Prize João of Almada 2017 and won the National Urban Rehabilitation Award 2016.
The 2019 International Architecture Awards ceremony will take place on September 13 in Athens, Greece, and the winning projects will be featured in a catalogue – “Global Design + Urbanism XIX” (“New International Architecture”) – edited by Christian Narkiewicz -Laine and published by Metropolitan Arts Press Ltd.
Founded in 2005, as a result of a joint initiative by The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Center for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies, the International Architecture Awards constitute the largest and oldest public annual celebration of architecture on a global scale, affirming itself as the only program of public prizes without commercial purposes.
This year’s edition awarded 350 projects from 41 countries, after an evaluation that took into account criteria such as vision, innovation and originality, accessibility, sustainability, comfort and usability, appropriateness to the purpose and level of customer satisfaction. In addition to the team of Nuno Valentim, the list of winners also includes the Portuguese offices PMC Arquitectos and Plano Humano Arquitectos.
