Project Name: Ventura Terra University Residence

Location: Lisboa, Portugal

Design Team: CVDB arquitectos

Total Floor Area: 7,100 m²

Completion: 2024

Photography: Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

Feature: Portuguese practice CVDB arquitectos has completed the Ventura Terra University Residence for the University of Lisbon that demonstrates how innovative looped circulation systems and strategic modular design strategies can transform high-density student housing requirements into a compact yet permeable living environment that fosters community interaction while maintaining spatial efficiency.

The 7,100-square-metre student residence dramatically integrates strict urban planning constraints with innovative community-building concepts, presenting itself as an architectural expression of profound contemplation on contemporary university residential typology, spatial organization strategies, and collective living experiences. Through meticulous circulation choreography and modular systems, it creates an educational building environment that seamlessly interweaves efficiency with community interaction.

The project's brilliance lies in its fundamental reimagining of architectural circulation and innovative spatial organization strategies. Confronting the challenge of achieving necessary building density on a constrained site while creating positive community experiences, the architects adopted a layout of four interconnected wings wrapped around a central communal courtyard, forming a continuous looped circulation system that promotes encounters and interactions among students. This design strategy creates an ongoing dialogue between different parts of the building, achieving a contemporary synthesis of spatial efficiency and community construction that makes the entire residence perfectly echo the collective nature of university life.

CVDB arquitectos's design language fluently articulates the contemporary educational architecture dialect, employing strategic modular approaches and communal space distribution to redefine student residential building experiences. The project is based on a modular system using individual room units as fundamental building blocks, an approach that optimizes construction economics without sacrificing spatial quality. The architects cleverly concentrated communal facilities such as laundries, pantries, study rooms, and informal lounges at junction points where different wings meet, transforming circulation intersections into social hubs rather than mere transitional spaces. The central courtyard serves as both visual and social anchor, visible from multiple vantage points and accessible through carefully planned pedestrian routes, creating visual permeability to counteract the potentially insular nature of compact residential architecture.

Most remarkably, the architects created a richly layered architectural experience through clever sectional organization strategies. The entire residence intelligently responds to the site's slope, placing collective and service spaces at street level on the lower floor to create visual permeability between urban fabric and the south-facing courtyard. This ground-level transparency invites the city in while maintaining residential privacy above. At the opposite end of the vertical organization, a rooftop terrace provides panoramic views across Lisbon and the Tagus estuary, offering students a contemplative space elevated above the dense urban campus. The circulation system seamlessly connects different wings, forming a continuous loop pathway that promotes chance encounters and reinforces a sense of community.

The building is organized into a clear functional hierarchy. The ground floor accommodates collective and service spaces required for operational dynamics, connecting street to courtyard through visual permeability. Upper floors house student residential units arranged around the central courtyard to maximize natural light and visual connections. Communal facilities are strategically distributed at circulation junction points, creating natural gathering points. Through careful spatial sequencing and material selection, the project achieves a delicate balance between high density and quality of life, privacy and community interaction, architectural efficiency and human scale.

The Ventura Terra University Residence demonstrates CVDB arquitectos's position as thinking practitioners capable of transforming complex functional requirements and site constraints into coherent architectural vision. It showcases how innovative spatial organization and circulation strategies can transform high-density student housing into a positive environment that nurtures community and supports academic life. The project sets new standards for contemporary educational architecture, revealing that modular design, community construction, and spatial efficiency can coexist harmoniously, creating architecture that meets practical needs while elevating everyday living experiences.

Design Team: The Lisbon-based architectural practice CVDB arquitectos was founded by Cristina Veríssimo and Diogo Burnay in 1999 in Lisbon, Portugal. Under the current leadership of founding principals Cristina Veríssimo and Diogo Burnay, the studio has established itself as a design-driven practice distinguished by its multifaceted approach to contemporary architectural challenges.

The studio's work encompasses diverse typological territories, ranging from private and public commissions to urban design projects addressing new construction, building rehabilitation, adaptive reuse of historic structures, interior architecture, and ephemeral installations. This breadth demonstrates the practice's versatility in navigating the complexities of both intimate-scale interventions and larger infrastructural projects, consistently maintaining a position that privileges experimentation and critical inquiry.

CVDB arquitectos positions itself as a research-oriented practice where each commission functions as an experimental field for investigating contemporary methods of architectural production. The studio's professional ethos centres on understanding architecture as an integral component of broader physical, social, and cultural landscapes, while simultaneously acknowledging the individual's experiential and perceptual relationship with built and urban environments. The practice has garnered significant recognition at national and international levels through awards, scholarly publications, exhibition participation, and invited lectures, establishing CVDB arquitectos as a critically engaged voice within Portuguese and international architectural discourse.