The Tent. Costa da Morte, 2020
Tent covers space like a cloak. The geometries of it adapt to the aerial body that delimits and embraces, without confining. Through its openings, the air and light flows, and the landscape seeps in, filling the open cracks in the matter.
It is an architecture molded by hands, hands that fold, connect, devise structure and space in unison. From the model, which serves as a sketch and miniature construction, we move on to the data, scanning every movement and every detail defined by the intuition of the creative moment. Design is followed by engineering and back to design. All this in 5 days and another 5 to complete the action, already in its rural environment. The construction is reminiscent of the design process in its dynamics; the form has already been established, the structures calculated, the lines marked. The work begins by drawing the assembly in three dimensions; the measurements and proportions are checked, the orientations already in place. And once the lines are validated, we go on to paint the structure, as a painting that has been previously sketched is painted, adding matter, texture and color in a unique and unrepeatable gesture.
Layer by layer the flexible folds stiffen, its elastic membranes harden, its damp skin dry. Layer by layer, an architecture materializes that is both textile and rocky, light and permanent, fluid and petrified. One thing and the other, depending on how you look at it or touch it. It rises from the ground and supports it slightly, as if its stay were to be short, only that its supports have taken root to support a space that rests between the trees and looks out to the sea. Silent, she waits for nature to shelter her and receive her as one more.