“Knowing that by 2050 almost 70 per cent of the world's population will live in cities, their importance for a fair and more sustainable society is inescapable,” says Portuguese curator, Guta Moura Guedes. “Architecture and design as well as the materials we choose, play a crucial role when it comes to transforming cities into a functional, flexible and sustainable human territory.” With this thought in mind, Guedes curated the research programme, City Cortex to explore new possibilities for using cork as a sustainable material in urban design. Portugal-based cork producer, Corticeira Amorim promotes and produces the event with support from a multidisciplinary Portuguese art organisation, Artworks.

Hosted in the Great Lisbon’s Belém and Trafaria neighbourhoods, the programme features contributions from distinguished architects and designers such as Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Gabriel Calatrava, Leong Leong, Sagmeister & Walsh, and Yves Béhar. Their designs, open for public viewing until November 2024, aim to expand the use of cork in urban contexts, promote sustainability, and inspire innovative urban design.

From reading rooms enveloping trees, a cork structure mirroring the nearby Belém Tower, a love-seat-inspired seating, and floating balls inspiring conversations on environmental change, STIR takes a look at the featured works.

'Second Skin' by Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R)

New York-based studio, Diller Scofidio + Renfro collaborated with a nearby municipal library to create miniature reading rooms featuring bookshelves complemented by cork benches for seating, which envelop trees as their ‘Second Skin’. Highlighting the significance of reading and literacy, as well as green urban spaces, the studio’s intent with the installation is to extend the reach of the Biblioteca de Belém into an adjacent public park by focusing on the many manifestations of the tree—a living organism, a shady place, a material used for construction and one used to print some of the most profound literature of our civilisation.

'Conversadeira II' by Eduardo Souto de Moura

Portugal-based Pritzker laureate, Eduardo Souto de Moura employed cork to craft a contemplative riverside retreat along the river Tagus in Belém. The love-seat-inspired structure is persuaded by the convergence of two buildings of the region constructed a century apart, which invites visitors to reflect on the past and the future of Lisbon. The cork alters the acoustics within the portico-like area by processing external sounds and changing the echo of conversations inside the structure.

'Onda' by Gabriel Calatrava

Founder of the New York-based design studio, Collaborative Architecture Laboratory, Gabriel Calatrava is of the opinion that “cork makes for a wonderful public-facing material, as it is flexible, durable, and soft-to-the-touch.” Influenced by the vacant and unused urban spaces in a city, Calatrava’s proposal for City Cortex centres on cork as the primary element to craft a functional public space on an empty lot in Trafaria village, across the river Tagus. The public installation features a wavy roof form in pink colour and playful tables seemingly rising from the cork floor.

'Lily Pad' by Leong Leong

The sibling duo Dominic Leong and Chris Leong of New York and Los Angeles-based Leong Leong studio designed Lily Pad as a sculptural seating installation. Its dynamic form utilises a steel-frame clad in natural cork which is processed under high pressure and temperature. Imbibing cork into the urban playscapes is the studio’s way, ‘to soften the hardscape of the city, considering how different bodies are made comfortable within urban spaces.’

'Life Expectancy', 'Cork Bottles' and 'Humpbacks' by Sagmeister & Walsh

Impressed by the numerous possibilities of cork’s uses and applications, New York-based artists and former partners, Stefan Sagmeister and Jessica Walsh collaborated on three unique cork projects for City Cortex. The first installation, Life Expectancy transforms an uninviting pedestrian tunnel that crosses the train tracks in Belém with the placement of patterned cork tiles on the ceiling by utilising cork’s soundproofing and temperature-regulating characteristics. Cork Bottles, on the other hand, feature a series of distinct bottle-like cork designs which absorb sound to improve the room’s acoustic environment. The third project, Humpbacks, is a floating ball mattress swimming over the river Tejo’s man-made inlet. The spheres display statistics on the number of humpback whales in the world from Sagmeister’s Now is Better project.

'Port_All' by Yves Béhar

Drawing inspiration from Portugal’s famous landmark, Torre de Belém which was built in 1519, Swiss-born designer, entrepreneur and founder of the FuseProject, Yves Béhar conceived the Port_All tower project for City Cortex as ‘a welcoming entrance and a protective space.’ Admiring cork’s versatility to express these qualities, Béhar designed an alternative arched gateway for people arriving in Lisbon as a symbolic moment of transition and protection. The material of the cylindrical structure insulates visitors from external sounds and elements, creating a serene and welcoming entryway to the city.

(Text by Simran Gandhi, intern at STIR)