Portuguese architectural firm HUGOSANTOALHA has completed the Norma Restaurant, a 205-square-meter hospitality project in Guimarães, Portugal, that explores the concept of architectural duality through the interplay of two distinct yet connected square rooms. Completed in 2023 under the direction of lead architect Hugo Santoalha, the project represents a sophisticated study in spatial relationships and contrasting design philosophies.
The architectural concept centers around two square rooms that, while essentially similar in their basic geometry, embody opposite characteristics in their relationship to their environment. The first room seeks maximum expansion in all directions, creating an almost dissolving effect toward the sky, while the second establishes clear boundaries through what the architect describes as "the promise of a slender roof and a thick brick wall turned inward."
This duality creates a fascinating tension within the restaurant's design, as the two spaces appear to be drawn toward each other despite their contrasting natures. The expansive room's tendency to disintegrate upward is balanced by the contained room's inward-focused brick construction, creating a dialogue between openness and enclosure, expansion and containment.
Photographed by Francisco Ascensão and Marta Machado, the completed project demonstrates how the architect's intentions manifest in the built environment. Despite the ambitious conceptual goals for each space—one seeking infinite expansion, the other defining strict limits—both rooms ultimately maintain their fundamental character while achieving a closer relationship to one another.
The restaurant's design philosophy reflects contemporary approaches to hospitality architecture that prioritize spatial experience and architectural narrative over purely functional considerations. The thick brick wall of the contained room provides a material anchor that contrasts with the ethereal quality of the expansive space, creating varied atmospheres within the single venue.
HUGOSANTOALHA's approach to the Norma Restaurant project exemplifies how contemporary Portuguese architecture continues to explore themes of duality and spatial relationships. The firm's ability to translate conceptual ideas about expansion and containment into a functioning restaurant space demonstrates the successful integration of philosophical architectural thinking with practical hospitality design requirements.
