The Bartlett
School of Architecture
Summer Show 2020
Explore



Close

Breathing Inside the Womb

Project details

Student Ioana-Maria Drogeanu
Programme
Unit UG13
Year 2

The work seeks to explore the boundaries between architecture and surrealism. It tries to find space within surreal poetry and metaphor through materials.


The building is a small hotel, gallery and performance space. It experiments with the idea of the womb, the first home. It attempts to introduce a sensory experience of this space by using inflatable structures. These structures create a constant exchange between the interior and the exterior, the feeling of being inside a 'breathing womb' that connects the café, the gallery, the performance space and the hotel rooms. The purpose of the building is to attract more people to the Botanical Garden of Lisbon which is one of the most beautiful green spaces in the city, to encourage Portuguese artists and make their work more visible to visitors who either come to drink coffee or relax. People from different environments can exchange experiences and ideas inside the building that tries to connect all of its functions instead of separating them. The columns between the glass on the ground floor are curved tree trunks, the roof shingles and wood around the hotel rooms is playful, and the inflatable structure gives the illusion of a space that constantly floats.

A Breathing Room

The roof around the gallery creates a changing spatial condition, a ‘breathing’ room. The membrane keeps changing the meaning of the surface that divides ‘inside’ from ‘outside’.

Front Elevation

The building sits adjacent to Lisbon’s Natural History Museum. It creates a new ‘breathing’ façade for the street front.

Surrealism in Plan

This drawing attempts to discuss the plan in terms of tiles, tables and textures within the adjacent spaces of the entrance, gallery, café and performance area.

Atrium Space

View from the third floor looking down towards the bar area. The uneven columns line the windows, beginning to merge into the trees beyond.

Share on , LinkedIn or

Close

Index of Works

Explore