Golf Centre at Ombria Resort

Loulé, Algarve, Portugal

2021–2009

Located next to the golf course at Ombria Resort, this hybrid building will serve temporarily as marketing suite and sales centre. Given its open space configuration, later, it will likely be converted into a golf maintenance centre and owner’s club.

The building is shaped as a trapezoid glass pavilion whose concave faces are shaded by long projecting eaves that generate a gallery around the perimeter of the building. The scheme includes a basement with parking and ancillary green-keeping facilities, entirely concealed in the topography.

The semi-public upper floor consists of a large open space with an enclosed central core of restrooms, pantry and technical areas and meeting rooms, surrounded by a glazed facade unobstructed across the whole perimeter, except for the management offices.

Structurally, the building is a composite of various systems; the basement columns and slab are in concrete, on top of which sit the upper floor steel columns, which in turn hold a system of tall laminated timber beam coffins. These will be covered by vertically mounted natural timber planks on the outside, interspersed with brass drains and flashing, together with the peripheral beam cover, also in brass.

This choice of materials and structural options has in mind the best use of resources, aiming to limit excavation by adapting the basement to the terrain and ensuring a coherent, and suitable material expression both tectonic and culturally.

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Study model

Basement-level floor plan

Ground-level floor plan

Location: Loulé, Algarve, Portugal
Client: Pontos Group OY (Finland)
Scope of Services: Architecture, interior design and landscape
Project Brief: Management and golf maintenance centre
Gross Built Area: 820 sq. m plus underground parking: Project Status: 2009 (concept design) – 2021