Dom Dinis Secondary School

In 2008, the project for the modernization of the Dom Dinis Secondary School is finalized, pioneering the reforms carried out by Parque Escolar. It belongs to the ‘pavilion’ typology of projects, which encompasses most of the secondary schools built in Portugal during the 1970s. They are characterized by an economy of means and elementary features, without acclimatisation infrastructures or heat and sound insulation. The project answered these major faults and improved the architectonic, constructive and infrastructural circumstances on all pre-existing buildings. Also vital was a modernization, primarily based on an improvement of the programme, adding and reconfiguring functional areas, in order to value them as epicentres of a new school life. The new building has a differentiating and identity role, presenting itself as a central area, with no beginning and no end, where the school’s vital functions lay and from which they are connected to all the existing pavilions. The new pavilion’s constructive system answered the few months short deadline, restraining the architectonic choices, with the architect opting for a metallic structure and exterior walls made of sandwich panels, finished in corrugated metallic sheets, both outside and inside. In 2008, the rehabilitation and extension of this secondary school was distinguished by an Honourable Mention of the Valmor Prize.