PLARQ consists in a team of architects that work seamless with the best engineers, designers and other specialists, accordingly to the program of each design we are developing.
PLARQ is established in São Paulo , Brazil , since 2001 ; The origins of our studio are Portugal , at the university city of Coimbra .
PLARQ beyond its practice in Brazil and Portugal has always worked abroad, both on its own, as well as in partnerships with foreigner architectural practices.
This Worldwide presence gives PLARQ a good Knowledge and experience not only in design but also in terms of investment groups and building contractors.
We have offices in Brazil (São Paulo , Rio de Janeiro , Porto Alegre) , Madrid (Spain) and Coimbra (Portugal).
PLARQ have also good experience , knowledge and partnerships in markets like Angola and Argentina . W are always looking forward to create new chances of having new opportunities through-out the world.
PLARQ has in its curriculum several types of building programs, in a wide range that starts in Housing, and goes through Services, Industry, Health, Education, Tourism and Leisure, Sports and also Urban Planning. This multifunctional know-how permits us to develop more complex programs such as master plans and integrate different type of buildings and programs, understanding how they can work together and their influence in urban environment at its different stages, from local to world wide.
We know time is precious so we are technologically prepared to answer our clients and help them to show-up as leaders on presenting an idea where guaranties like build ability, cost control, building quality and time chronograms, are critical criteria for our design and aims to achieve with rigor.
We also believe that functional concepts and image quality are essential for the success of design and site integration, so that new buildings can become real urban references, secure, functional and pleasant to use. Therefore PLARQ studies and presents all the studies in three-dimensional models, trying always to achieve a more realistic and perceptible solution.
These last years PLARQ has been developing and materializing a new concept around Sports Centers.
This concept has necessarily to do with some kind of great event, which on one hand justifies all the investment and on the other hand naturally promotes it, just as what happened in Portugal with Euro 2004, and is nowadays, happening in Brazil with 2014 World Cup and 2016 Olympics. And the concept has to do with some lines of thought which are:
• Understanding Sport is, nowadays, one of the most powerful ways to attract people. This idea, backed-up by a great event, creates the justification for large scale State and private investment, in all the infrastructures necessary for those events, like stadiums, pavilions, roads, hotels, hospitals, etc. This scale of building justifies the design of master plans, in which, at a first stage, program is the most important component, with the sport venue (or sport complex) at its heart, showing up as a catalyzer of Private investments and urban dynamics.
• The Sports venues like Stadiums ought to be thought based on multifunctional parameters, which should always be crossed with all the regulative and security requirements in order to create buildings which pay for themselves and become easy to manage, and full of valences serving the community. Using the example of Coimbra Stadium, we are in the presence of a big building, based, not only, in all the requirements of football and athletics, but also based in the idea that we should create a peace of architecture where almost any kind of event such like music concerts (as the Rolling Stones , U2, and George Michael), fairs, expositions, etc, can happen, and where areas can assume other programs beyond sports and leisure, as commerce, museums or offices. In Coimbra we are in the presence of the redevelopment of an existing urban area, where the stadium (30000 to 55000 capacity) is the center of a more vast program where appears a multifunctional arena for 5000 people, two swimming pools, one aparthotel (200 flats), a commercial mall (60000 m2) and underground parking (3500 capacity), mainly fruit of private investment, coordinated with State and local Municipality. Meanwhile with the use of the Coimbra Stadium we’ve designed for EURO 2004, we’ve managed to prove our ideas of multifunctional space and secure, functional and profitable for their managers.
• Presently, we are already applying this formula in Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul – Brazil) with a 3 billion investment operation, in which the heart of a brand new 3 ha urban area is de Grêmio Arena, already starting being built.
