PROJECTS
QUINTA DA TORRE
Braga, Portugal, 2019/2021
Client: Dinamica Repetida LDA
Size: 33 Hectares
Program: Water Park, Resort Hotel, Recreation, Entertainment, Retail, Education
The Qta Torre Master Plan recognized by the Braga municipality as the centerpiece to re-establish the city as a year-round family entertainment oriented destination attracting both greater tourism, providing a healthy recreation venue for residents and reinforcing Braga’s brand as a city for families.
In addition, the master plan creates critical transportation connections from the central city to the growing North-West sector of the Braga municipal district, allowing sustainable growth away from the historic city center.
INFECTIOUS DESEASES UNIT
Porto, Portugal, 2020
Client: Hospital São João
Program: ICU Negative Isolation Quarantine Unit
In order to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, we need more and better medical facilities. RSO designed for Portugal’s Norther Region Central Teaching Hospital a state of the art Quarantine Unit as an expansion to the existing Infectious Diseases Department. Composed of Single bed ICU capable BSL3 equivalent rooms, it will become the country’s most advanced facility in the treatment and research of Infectious and Emergent Diseases.
TIBYANA LABS
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, 2018/2021
Client: Tibyana
Program: Outpatient Diagnostics Center and Medical Testing Laboratories
RSO was commissioned to re-plan and develop the first of 42 Outpatient Diagnostic and Testing Centers to be built throughout the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The project includes a full imaging and blood testing center and an in-house blood testing laboratory. The center serves both Tibyana’s own patients takes in patients from other healthcare operators providing a convenient, efficient and safe environment for patients. The design aesthetic is cast as a clean, futuristic place that uses organic shapes to soften the perception of space and give a sense of calm flow and movement.
The first location is now open to the public in Jeddah, KSA.
BELLE TERRE RECREATION CENTER
Murrietta, CA, 2018
Client: Regent Development
Size/Cost: 8,000 sf, US$ 2.6m
Program: Recreation Center, Community Pool, Conference Center, Café and Outdoor Play Areas
The recreation center will act as the social hub of the 500 unit French Valley housing development providing family amenity spaces that include outdoor pools, recreation rooms, conference center, playgrounds and outdoor barbeque and picnic area. Designed in a modern French Farm vernacular, the buildings utilize simple plaster forms with grey slate roofs and stone walls throughout the landscape.
BRAGA PRIVATE HOSPITAL
Braga, Portugal, 2010
Client: Trofa Saúde
Program: 40 beds, 6 ORs, 10 ICU beds, 6 LDRP, OPD, ER
Braga’s Private Hospital, one of the first expansion projects of Trofa Saúde in northern Portugal, was the a flagship unit that helped establish TF as a leading private healthcare provider based on improving and catering to a positive patient experience.
The mandate to the designer was simple yet daunting: to accommodate a demanding medical planning that would challenge the Ministry of Health standards, into a building that would exceed all environmental norms of the day.
RSO Introduced many innovations including a Sterile Core surgery center, Evidence Based Design, multisensorial way finding strategies, and the inclusion of daylighting throughout the building.
Upon its completion the project received the Green Building Award from AD-ENE, the first in the EU awarded to a hospital facility.
PRIVATE ISLAND
El Gouna, Egypt, 2009
Program: Private residences, Marina, Spa and Recreation Center
The design brief was to create an exclusive private island villa on the Red Sea coast in Egypt.
The 2 hectare luxury resort villa embodies every feature found in a five-star, tropical resort design including resort style pool and spa,bespoke wine cellar, costum made fish tanks, private marina, guest facilities, a grand events lawn, and luscious gardens all with the added privacy of a secluded private island.
COVID FIELD HOSPITAL
Matosinhos, Portugal, 2020
Client: SOS-Coronoavirus
Program: 600-Bed Isolation Hospital and Support Spaces
As COVID-19 spreads throughout our communities, a team of dedicated professionals in the Medical, Design and Engineering communities have come together to develop a concept for a field hospital that would provide an advanced, safe environment for patients, doctors and nurses who are suffering high attrition rates in sub-par facilities that lack proper mechanical ventilation systems and infection control design.
The main focus of the project is to create the most time and cost efficient means to provide a safe and sustainable hospital setting for the growing number of COVID-19 patients in the North region of Portugal. They key difference of this proposal from the typical Field Hospitals that are being built globally is the creation of an advanced Ventilation system that mitigates the exposure for patients and healthcare workers to the airborne pathogens that is the key to COVID-19’s spread.
The use of proven existing modular construction allows the rapid deployment of the necessary pressurized environments that conform to established international safety standards to control airborne infectious diseases. In addition using the Exponor Convention Center instantly provides the necessary facilities to support the long-term operations of a field hospital providing, logistical support, food service, utilities, access and parking.
In the larger picture, this facility will also provide relief to hospitals in the region by rapidly creating a safe and large volume of beds for less acute patients to be safely treated and recover, thus freeing up the limited resources within the entire healthcare system for more critical patients in established existing hospitals, in essence providing the “breathing space” to the entire healthcare system of the North region of Portugal.
TECH CAMPUS
San Jose CA, 2020
Program: Office, F&B and Conference Center
Design Team: Form4: Lead Designer and AOR; RSO: Interior Design, Site Architecture and CD’s.
RSO is providing design and technical support services to Form4 Architecture in San Francisco on the transformation of an existing office campus into a state of the art technology campus with a greater emphasis on collaboration and upgrading quality to meet the client’s design standards. The interior re-design as established by Form4, is focused on providing higher levels of formal and informal meetings spaces with meeting rooms, teaming spaces, cafes, restaurants, conference center and enhanced outdoor spaces in between buildings for collaboration throughout the existing campus.
Design work included re-planning and re-imaging of public and work spaces through different design themes that connect the project to regional themes and provide identity and continuity for the different buildings on the campus.
IDEIA ATLÂNTICO
Braga, Portugal, 2008
Client: Ideia-Atlântico – Instituto de Desenvolvimento Empresarial e Inovação do Atlântico
Size: 5.000 m2
Program: Start-up Incubator, Hot-Desks, Flexi-Offices, Meeting rooms, Training rooms, auditorium, copy-center and coffee shop
The two wings of office space link through a multistory lobby over a set of metal bridges and stairs, designed to encourage people to use them instead of the elevators. The bridges are wide enough to be furnished with couches that make for informal meeting spaces.
On the ground floor, a coffee shop that doubles as your local bar after hours, serves meals at lunch and also offers a relaxed catered environment were business is conducted and meetings are more enjoyable
Over the coffee shop, an open auditorium as a continuum of events that do not go unnoticed to all that use the building, and the verandas and bridges around the space make it simple for anyone to drop by and listen to whatever is being discussed or presented at the time
The project was a success since its opening in 2008, catering a waiting list in a city that had an excess offer of office space. Other locations were initiated in cities like Porto, Lisbon and Rio de Janeiro, making the Atlantic Idea a reality in connecting and networking people globally.
SAROTOS WORPLACES
Braga, Portugal, 2020/2021
Client: Castro RED
Size: 7,500 m2
Program: Tech Business Center
The Sarotos Business Center utilizes the conversion of the existing walls of a 1960’s factory into a business center for start-up technology companies. The project creates a series of loft type office spaces in the double height volume of the factory and integrates a new skylit roof element that allow natural light access to the deep open-office floor plates that are desired by the technology focused tenants as well as provide an engaging “5th elevation” for the surrounding housing towers that ring the development.
The exterior building along the public street will include a 3-d printed façade screen for tenant signage.
RESORT SHARM AL NAGA
Red Sea, Egypt, 2010/2020
Client: Travelways
Program: two 5-Star Resort Hotels with Dive Center
The original diving resort master plan was started in 2010 as a 100-key hotel but had to be re-adapted after the Arab-Spring revolution which greatly altered the Egyptian tourism industry and requiring greater emphasis on safety and new international standards.
The design includes 60-high-end villas and 340 key standard resort rooms arranged in 3 separate areas around the beach front and lagoon area. Included in the development are a series of large and small format dining facilities and restaurants, dive center, recreation spa and health club, kids club and pool areas as well as a conference/banqueting hall. The project Is currently implementing the second phase of development which comprises another 200-keys in both standard room and private villas.
LAMEGO HOSPITALITY COLLEGE
Lamego, Portugal, 2001/2006
Client: Turismo de Portugal
Program: Technical College, Trainning Hotel, Student Housing
The Hotel and Tourism School of Lamego was a long waited and much needed strategic project for the northern Portugal wine region of Douro, the 300-year-old demarcated region where Port wine comes from. The Douro Valley is an extensive landscape protected and classified by UNESCO and being World Heritage, full of hand carved terraces were the famous grapes grow in a unique microclimate.
Designed in terraces, much like the Douro Valley bellow, the competition winning design was based on preserving a historically significant baroque church in the city below the site. The massing of the college were made simple and low, so the scale of the project would blend into the tree-line of the mountain.
The school building, central to the campus design, raises from the ground at an angle, under which glazed façade the library and school administration offices are located. Once inside, a large central staircase descends at random angles to a lower lobby, that connects to the common areas, administration and library through a discrete passage. The academic areas are organized along a corridor punctuated by differently shaped skylights which assist in wayfinding and bring natural light to the different classrooms, laboratories and a state of the art 400m2 teaching kitchen on two levels.
The project also features a restaurant cafeteria, where the students prepare and serve the food to faculty, students and visitors, providing real life simulation of 5-star service and a separate student housing dormitory that houses 320-students and faculty on site.
PERRIS WORK TRAINING CENTER
Perris, CA, 2019
Client: City of Perris
Size/Cost: 2,100 m2, US$ 6.2m
Program: Vocational Technology Education
Design Team: RSO + Christopher Francis Architecture: Programming, Design Architect, Bluestone Management: AOR
The Perris Work Center will acts as a catalyst redevelopment project for the historic Downtown of Perris CA. Located on the main intersection of the downtown core, the facility will provide state of the art vocational training laboratories and workshops for the local workforce in the areas of advanced automated production technologies such as CMC, 3-D Printing and Digital Design, as well as traditional building crafts for construction, welding and plumbing. In partnership with local public and private colleges, trade unions and government agencies, the Work Center is designed as a flexible platform to accommodate different technologies and education equipment, The ground floor is anchored by 3 flexible labs that can allow different educational tenants to provide state of the art instruction depending on market demands. The second floor housed 4 open classrooms and a jobs-center to ensure students not only have access to education but also to job opportunities. Key features of the design was to showcase students work by providing large windows for views from the street level into the various workshops and a “armature” approach to the building systems like handrails, window treatments, ceiling panels etc. that would allow students to exhibit their work.
AS SALAM INTERNATIONAL HOSPITAL
Cairo, Egypt, 2007/2013
Client: As Salam International Hospital
Program: 350 Beds Tertiary Hospital, Cardiology & Cardiac surgery; Orthopedics; Neurosurgery ; Oncology ; Multi organ Transplants ; Minimally Invasive surgery & Women & Child Health
As Salam is Egypt’s largest private tertiary care hospital with 350 beds. An American designed & privately-owned hospital since 1982 having 7 OR’s, 58 ICU beds, comprehensive radio & lab diagnostics. The hospital has an employee base of 1300 staff. Since 2007 RSO helped led the successful strategic restructuring and expansion of the building. Post renovation the facility achieved 350 beds including 126 ICU beds and will add an adjacent tower for the outpatient consultations.
The hospital is now both ISO 9001-2008 certified & accredited by JCI in July 2010. By 2013 the Hospital became a Center of Excellence for Cardiology & Cardiac surgery; Orthopedics; Neurosurgery; Oncology; Multi organ Transplants; Minimally Invasive surgery & Women & Child Health.
CASA DA SAÚDE MASTERPLAN
Portugal, 2008
Client: Sanusquali
Program: Out-patient Medical Clinics, Imaging Center, Health Club-Spa, Retail and Senior Care Housing
Design Team: RSO: Master Planning and Architectural Design
RSO was commissioned to design a prototype healthcare mall that will be constructed in 25 different locations, providing surgical and clinical ambulatory services, imaging, a health club, a spa, different health-related shops and a family health center, as well as a 40-bed senior residential area for each location. The basis of the design is to connect healthcare services in a retail format, providing patients a consumer based format revolutionizing the patient experience away from the institutional nature of government run facilities.
Designed as a fully flexible facility, all circulation, service cores and building systems are pushed periphery of the building envelopes to allow fully open interior spaces to accommodate changing medical planning needs and flexibility to reconstitute spaces over time. In addition a great deal of focus was placed on the creation of social spaces, retail and food areas in-between departments to allow customers, care-givers and the general public to inter-mingle and take care of other necessities in an integrated lifestyle environment.
MORADIAS DE CUSTOIAS
Matosinhos, Portugal, 2001/2005
Client: Moradias de Custóias – União de Cooperativas de Habitação
Program: Town-houses with community support spaces
The community development consisted of 60 town houses in the northern part of Matosinhos for a Union of three of the most emblematic and renowned Housing Cooperatives.
The program asked for a 3-bedroom, two-bathroom unit, complete with an extra WC, kitchen, living/dining room and a back and front yard, plus a garage that gives residents the option to house a laundry room.
The design focused on the use of traditional materials such as brick, stone and wood with a contemporary language
QUINTA DE NOGUEIRA
Braga, Portugal, 2000/2001
Program: Private Residence
The design of the Quinta Oliveira took an existing stone farm and converted it to a residential compound which included 3 separate residences and family community spaces.
The design looked to preserve the existing masonry buildings while juxtaposing modern building forms and technology, expressing distinct separations of the existing and new structural and wall systems.
EASTERN AVE. LOFTS
Bell Gardens, CA, 2020
Client: JK Developments
Size/Cost: 3,400 m2, US$ 7.8m
Program: Housing and Retail
Design Team: RSO: Design Architect, CFA: AOR
Located in the community of Bell Gardens, the development will be the first high-density mixed use project along the Eastern Ave. commercial corridor what will act as a catalyst to spur a vibrant urban living movement that the city wants to accommodate upwardly mobile workers from the LA downtown core. Built on a raised podium, sixteen 1,600 SF, 2 Bedroom Loft housing units will surround a landscaped courtyard that provides outdoor amenities that includes a community fireplace and fountain within a landscaped terrace.
PALMER HOTEL
Hollywood, CA, 2021
Client: Artist Guild Hotels
Size/Cost: 76,000 SF, US$ 28.5m
Program: Hotel, restaurant and retail
Design Team: RSO Hospitality Technical Architect, Visioneering-AOR, HRAPI-Design and Interiors
Located on historic Hollywood Boulevard, the project converts the 4-story Historic Palmer building into a luxury boutique hotel with the addition of 7 new floors built on a seismically upgraded masonry structure. The project features 88 unique hotel rooms, 2 restaurants, roof bar, wellness center and roof terrace pool and roof bar.
The stepped form of the new tower lowers the impact on historically sensitive Hollywood Boulevard.