UPTEC IN WAITING: BETWEEN REALITY AND VIRTUAL
BY GIOVANY BICALHO, RENATO RIBEIRO, TÂNIA MARQUES
UPTEC is the meeting point between different disciplines, contexts and specialists. It is a space to risk, provoke, share, build and learn. UPTEC is a place for open-minded and highly qualified people to dream, create and develop a better future for us all." Due to the context currently experienced in Portugal and the world, with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, countless professionals and students, in confinement, have been forced to roll up their sleeves and find ways to continue working outside their offices and colleges which results in empty, seemingly abandoned buildings where only the necessary people roam. The idea of the present work seeks to document what this "meeting place" is, when there is almost no one to meet. How a space that is made to receive is felt, when there is nothing to give. In this way, the group chose to show their vision and feeling of the space during their visits to UPTEC, following a route idea that emphasizes the richness of spaces in this park of science and technology, consisting of two blocks in "L", which embrace and circumscribe, along with the new urban park and the landscape around the Hospital of São João, a wide meeting place.
Between reality...
Here we observe the occasional movements, which, to be sure, were once more agitated, of students, professors, and workers, who pass by on foot, far away, or in vehicles, from cars, buses, and even ambulances. UPTEC then borders the School of Health and this break between the two realities cannot fail to be noticed. First of all, it is evident that it is posterior to the School of Health, trying to seek altimetric relations with the latter, but the biggest difference consists in the idea of open space that UPTEC makes itself felt, opening up to the outside, not only as is evident in the courtyard, which maintains a strong visual relationship with the building thanks to its sheets of glass, but also on the façade parallel to the School of Health, where several openings can be seen, seeking a contained relationship with the outside, almost as if out of respect for the neighboring building, which closes in on itself, even resorting to the use of grids. These spaces of convergence become the most interesting spaces of this implantation. To emphasize this confrontation of worlds, the group decided to adopt Maros Krivy's false panoramic technique, forcing the breakdown of these two worlds, and even identifying a third one, in the background, the Asperela neighborhood. This, together with the Faculty of Psychology and Science of Education are in total confrontation with the park. If on one side the technology is highlighted by the existence of drones made from scratch, which are able to fulfill the idealized purposes, on the other side there are huge garbage bags on the edges of a very worn-out road. Here too, the photographer's technique reveals great astuteness, as the parts function not only as one, but mainly separately, almost as if they were pieces of a puzzle and could move from place to place. We are then forced, thanks to a white gate that hides a vacant lot, to return to the courtyard. We then decide to go around the building, finding ourselves in what looks like the back of the building, but where the main entrance is. This is marked by glass panels similar to those facing the courtyard, which makes us notice the transversality of that point. Looking up we notice an appealing balcony, and quickly want to enter and find out how to get there. Upon entering, we are confronted with a different reality.
different reality. The cold outside, enhanced by the glass and the concrete paneling, dissolves in the warmth of the wood in orange tones, which are replicated in the corridors of the east wing. And this is exactly why the group went to the right. Forced to climb the cold emergency staircase, where an interesting skylight appears, there we find a corridor without natural light and with room doors on both sides. At the end we see the long awaited balcony. We feel that it is a meeting space, that promotes a good break between colleagues, and that if in a pandemic context we saw 4 colleagues, how many would not see each other in a normal situation? Entering the West wing, we feel such a strong relationship with the courtyard, thanks to its long corridor facing outwards. New doors of new companies appear. New rooms, which present themselves in the same way - empty - in waiting.