Black Fountain

Location: Cascais, Portugal   
Type: Competition
Status: Honorable Mention - 2nd prize
Year: July 2018
Collaborators: Tikumporn Panichakan, Kanchaporn Kieatkhajornrit, Lalipat Sirirat

The Black Fountain stands in the Jardim da Parada as an artificial nature, reminding ourselves of the primitive importance of water and ecosystemic complexity, and how they are profoundly linked together, especially under the current environmentally troubled times. It’s a performative totem to empower the presence of other species within our built environment, to create a collective moment of leisure, that transcends kind, and relates everybody to water for its functional and cultural value.
Its unconventional beauty and materiality, resulted from assembling a multiplicity of materials from different origins and conditions, proposes a new understanding of nature in a contemporary framework, calling for an architecture that negotiates an agreed and unexpected equilibrium with its own environment.

‘Cunctorum Viventium’ means literally ‘of all the living beings’, in the sense that the intervention is conceived for many different species, from insects, to birds, to human beings. Its aim is to promote wider ecological reflections, understanding the fragile balance of local ecosystems, with an attitude of fresh participation. The curatorial program is therefore shaped around these new interactions with a general ecological call, proposing a wide variety of more or less mundane activities and specialized events. Those activities are conceived for kids to elderly, but also for humans’ companion species.