Xerox Centre

The presence of this building in a busy avenue connecting Olivais to Parque das Nações brings into this urban context the principles of classic architecture, here reinterpreted for contemporaneity. The strength of the building exudes the corporative solidity of its occupation. The intense road confluence adjacent to its locations explains its “U” shape, generating two parallel volumes of office floors connected by a volume of services and infrastructures, configured around a large open void. This central area assumes an inescapable presence throughout its 800 square metres and five storeys, in which the monumentality of the centre atrium endorses both functional and contemplative needs. A space of circulation and reception, it also becomes a place of silence and contemplation for the large corporation. This atrium keeps a mainly civic role, as is offers the possibility of acting as a space open to the city.
The façade’s compositional system is based on the concept of a constructive module whose configuration refers to the idea of a heavy volume in which the fragile elements—glass, wood or zinc—are visually sustained by a representational skeleton.