Cidade Financeira
Cidade Financeira (Finance City) is a multifunctional hub (consisting of offices, services, retail spaces, housing and public space) in the south of Luanda, close to the airport.
Year — 2007
Location — Luanda
Area — 12.153 sqm
Category — Mixed-Use
Status — Built
Photo Credits — © João Freire
The main commercial strategy was to create a micro-system for entrepreneurial survival. Following this principle, a type of micro-climate in design terms was devised, where the architectural environment incorporate unique elements aimed at stimulating innovation, creativity and entrepreneurism.
In praise of the public space as a place of meeting and sharing knowledge, the built structures occupy only 11,000 sq. m of the site’s total of 24,500 sq. m, applying the social principles of the Greek agora or the Roman forum, arranging the building around a square.
Furthermore, with the aim of reducing the overall impact of the total floor space (98,000 sq. m), the four office buildings (with six storeys each) and one residential building (five floors) rest on one and the same base (principle of union), structurally made up of a modular pilotis system that anchors the building with great subtlety to the ground, adding the notion of floating and at the same time enhancing the visual transparency.
The office building elevations stand out for their transparency, thanks to the use of glass, whilst in the residential building opacity provides degrees of privacy. The roof of the base has been given a hanging garden that further elevates the space between the five buildings.
Each pillar rises from the ground to symbolically become the trunks of identity that strengthen this entrepreneurial micro-climate.