Aires Mateus’ Community Centre in Grândola, Portugal.

If geometric shapes are your thing, then you are going to love this angularly constructed building by architects, Aires Mateus in Portugal. It feels reminiscent of the paper constructions we used to make as children. Taking a blank sheet of white paper, folding it meticulously in half and half again, folding down the sides to make triangles and then turning it over to make more half triangular folds. Only to pull the finished product into a cuboid, three dimensional shape big enough to slide your fingers into to manipulate the space. If you could make a building like it, this is it.

The meeting centre, designed for large gatherings and small groups, sits within the town square of Grândola, Portugal. Peaks and cut outs. Squares and rectangles. Elongated triangular shapes rise towards peaked ceiling. Somehow it manages to incorporate every mathematical geometrical shape you can think of. And all of these shapes sit neatly within the cuboid form it is built from.

“The ceiling, in its variations and geometry answers the program. A complete horizontal clearness outlines the space as a whole, which as atmosphere opposes to the weight of the vertical voids,” said the architects.

This edifice is bold. It is a grand gesture. One could not accuse it of being sympathetic to its surrounds. Its proportion, its scale and its blindingly white exterior (not to mention its mega-watt white interior) are not meek or mild. In no way does this building try and assimilate with the environment it is a part of. But there’s something gutsy about that. Something rebellious. And there’s nothing more attractive than architecture that’s got balls… or circles, or triangles or squares.

Related Posts: Toally Terrific Triangles in Architecture & Interiors.

[Images courtesy of Aires Mateus. Photography by Nelson Garrido.]