Competition for morgue house at Barrancos, Portugal.

Mortuary House: an intimate space, a social space. Inside: an intimate, spiritual space for recollection, introspection and prayer. Outside: social meeting space, psychological relaxation, smiles and conversations, smoke and coffee, looking at the landscape in the shadow of the building it protects. It is a robust building, supported on volumes directly attached to the ground, and yet, seeming to be suspended, hovering over the slope. The Barrancos Cemetery, located at the highest point of the village, offers a relationship with the sky full of symbolism. Our Mortuary House proposes a direct connection to the intermediate level, reusing and enhancing an existing secondary door, allowing easier access to the center of the Cemetery and, from there, making the route to the desired places, namely the platforms of the recent expansion. The Mortuary House appears as a white volume, perpendicular to the equally white and prismatic bodies of the Cemetery. It is accessed from Rua de São Bento via a ramp, or via a staircase embraced by two small terraces that offer panoramic views over the surrounding landscape. The staircase provides a leisurely and symbolic approach, descending to the wake spaces. The Wake Rooms are conceived as spaces with a strong spiritual and symbolic charge. In each room, a central corridor topped by a skylight leads to the marble plinth on which the urn rests, illuminated by the overhead light. Surrounding the walls, a bench also in Alentejo marble, is intended for the family and close friends of the loved one, symbolically embracing him. It is an intimate space, of the last homage. Separating the two rooms there will be a wall formed by sliding white panels, which go back to the Waiting Room, where they are rotated and arranged. The Grand Wake Room, as a unique space, will be marked by the two large skylights over the corridors. The marble-paved area, intended for family members and special friends, will embrace on both sides the urn that will be placed in the center, on the two marble benches that thus form the central plinth. The two plinths of the individual Wake Rooms will be mechanically lowered to the floor level, like simple marble slabs.