Ventura & Partners. From Laboratory to territory

12 selected works 1994-2025

This book presents an exhaustive overview of more than three decades of architectural practice by the studio led by Manuel Ventura (Porto, 1967), an architect who trained at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto.

The selection of twelve projects built in Porto and other Portuguese cities—from the CUF Hospital and the Bom Sucesso Interchange to residential buildings such as Serralves, Ocean, and Essenza—provides an understanding of how the research carried out in the studio is materialised in works that integrate into the city and the landscape, taking into account both the urban scale and the everyday experience of their users.

The work of Ventura & Partners, internationally recognised with distinctions from the Chicago Athenaeum, The Plan Award and the Architecture MasterPrize, is presented in this volume as a practice based on technical knowledge, constructive experimentation and mastery of the craft. Each project functions as a testing ground where types, systems and solutions are researched, refined and evolved in successive works, forming a coherent, open and constantly changing body of work. In this sense, the studio reveals itself as a living organism, capable of adapting to diverse contexts and programmes without losing the consistency of a method that places architecture at the crossroads between discipline, city and life.

The publication stands out for the depth and quality of its graphic documentation. Each project is presented through photographs, sketches, general plans and construction details that allow the reader to understand the entire process, from the initial idea to the finished building.

The volume includes four critical essays by José Bernardo Távora, Elia Bernardos, Rui Jorge Garcia Ramos and José Gigante, as well as a conversation with Manuel Fernandes Sá.