ARKxSITE has announced winners for the Site Mausoleum international competition in the Jaspe Quarry, Serra da Arrábida, Portugal. This international one-stage architecture ideas competition invited all architecture students, young architects and young professionals with a degree in architecture studies (≤ 40 years old) to develop and submit compelling ideas for the design of a Site Mausoleum located in the Jaspe Quarry, Serra da Arrábida, Portugal.

The Site Mausoleum, located on a prominent landscape, is a place of memory and solitude, a tranquil atmosphere for introspection and remembrance; it is an intimate journey through time and silence, offering visitors a unique experience within the immensity of the place.

The Jaspe Quarry is a remarkable place within a powerful natural scenery where the remains of an old quarry carved into the landscape, together with the massive cliffs that drop dramatically into the Atlantic Ocean, are notable features within this setting.

The desactivated quarries display the natural beauty of the ‘Arrábida Brecha’, a unique ornamental stone used in several monuments within this region (also known as “Arrábida Marble”). The Jaspe Quarry was closed in 1976 when the Arrábida Natural Park was created.

When generating a vision for an intervention located within such a spectacular place, it is essential that each design proposal emphasises, respects and celebrates the site, while providing visitors with a unique experience.

The jury composed of: Joaquin Alarcia + Federico Ferrer Deheza (Argentina) - Alarcia-Ferrer Arquitectos, Fernanda Canales (Mexico) -Fernanda Canales Arquitectura, MESURA (Spain) - MESURA.

The competition selected 7 Honorable Mentions in the competition. See all Honorable Mentions here. 

See the full winning projects with jury comments below:

Image courtesy of Giulio Pinci

1st prize: Giulio Pinci (Italy)

Jury comment: A perfect reduction of the intervention into one single wall. A balcony to the sea, you turn around and see a human made hole. You cross it and discover an open air space for contemplation. There, only a little bit of water, like a dry dam. A great balance between an engineer infrastructure and a land art intervention. Not looking for mimesis, neither stand out. The strength of this project is that it disappears into the landscape. It provides a new program that is visible from every point but it blends with the surroundings making evident the particularities and contrasts between nature and a man made structure but avoiding an imposing structure in the site.

A single disruption allows the user to be immersed in the past of the place. The passage, removed from the rock, introduces the visitor to a hidden interior, where soul and memory are successfully found. Although It succeeds better in the relation of the user and the inner mountain than with the sea, it solves with a single (and very adequate) gesture most of the emotional demands of the mausoleum. Congratulations!

Image courtesy of Emma Bonilla Albornoz, Daniel Eslava Tovar and Santiago Castillo Reina

2nd prize: Emma Bonilla Albornoz, Daniel Eslava Tovar and Santiago Castillo Reina (Colombia) 

Jury comment: A sequence of extreme experiences. A hole in the mountain, like a deep cave. You see light, and discover the roughness of stone. You continue, and find light again, this time reflected in water. You decided to get wet, to finally contemplate de immensity of the ocean. A great phenomenological trip full of emotion. The relationship between the architectural project and the natural elements such as water and light are integrated and form a new landscape that one might think it had existed for decades. There is a mysterious quality in this project that is very appropriate for the theme of the completion and evokes a place of solitude and reflection.

An extremely conscious proposal that reveres the core idea of its nature... the infliction of a wound. In a very elegant and conscious way the project understands the language of the quarry and uses the same grammar for a beautiful result. Maybe not as bold is the relation with water, that is more limited to the rock’s water-surface than to a potentially more transcendental relation with the sea horizon. But in the end, a successful new human footprint, so aligned with the past that disappears. Congratulations!

Image courtesy of Eiji Otsubo and Takashi Nishizuka

3rd prize: Eiji Otsubo and Takashi Nishizuka (Japan)

Jury comment: A well calibrated intervention in the landscape that solves all the conditions of the contest with great synthesis and forcefulness is valued. The project is developed as a continuous and suggestive route crossed by multiple atmospheres that demonstrates a skillful handling of the lights, shadows and scales. This intervention transforms the place into an authentic phenomenological experience that concludes with a powerful panoramic view of the landscape. The continuity of the view of the sea and a new platform with water generates a new dimension that opens the site to the sky and the water as an unexpected horizontal framed landscape. The different paths provided by the project generate varied experiences in the site.

With the site as the main focus, a very elegant promenade that blends with the context and enhances a dynamic experience. Only shadowed by a probably unnecessary excess - because of too artificial - of a utopic water viewing point, it is indeed a very context- conscious proposal where the structure is harmoniously united with landscape. Congratulations!

See other architectural competitions on WAC's Competitions page. 

Top image: 1st prize: Giulio Pinci (Italy), courtesy of Giulio Pinci

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