Ninho Globo is a hand-built spherical structure embedded in the rural border landscape of Salvaterra do Extremo, Portugal. Constructed from locally sourced black schist, the project operates between art and architecture, engaging geological memory, collective labor, and spatial inhabitation within a former dry-stone agricultural site.
Ninho Globo Technical Information
- Architects: Atelier YokYok
- Location: Salvaterra do Extremo, Portugal
- Gross Area: 25 m2 | 269 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years: 2025 – 2026
- Photographs: © Pedro Costa
The sphere embodies a balance between permanence and movement, engaging the body directly while recalling the mineral origins and shared condition of the land.
– Atelier YokYok
Territorial Anchoring and Landscape Reading
The project is situated within an abandoned complex of dry-stone enclosures, locally known as furlas, once used for pig farming. These low walls and miniature shelters rest on a granite base shaped by erosion, forming a micro-landscape marked by accumulated labor and gradual abandonment. Rather than erasing these traces, Ninho Globo positions itself as a new layer within this stratified environment, acknowledging both its agricultural past and its present state of exposure.
Salvaterra do Extremo lies at Portugal’s eastern edge, facing Spain across the gorges of the Rio Erges. This border condition reinforces the project’s outward orientation and long-distance visual relationships. Views extend east toward the fortified Castelo de Peñafiel and west across the Portuguese plateau, situating the work within a broader territorial reading defined by visibility and passage.
Wind, solar movement, and topographic exposure informed the placement and formation of the structure. These environmental forces are treated as active design inputs that shape experience over time, situating the intervention within daily and seasonal atmospheres rather than isolating it as a static object.
Geometric Form and Spatial Experience
The sphere is employed as a primary architectural figure, drawing on its geometric efficiency and symbolic association with planetary bodies and terrestrial cohesion. Its compact form suggests equilibrium and continuity, while its material mass anchors it firmly within the landscape. Despite its abstraction, the volume remains scaled to bodily encounter rather than distant contemplation.
A vertical fissure cuts into the sphere, creating a canyon-like threshold that provides access to the hollow core. This incision references both the presence and absence of water, recalling the erosive forces that formed the nearby river gorges. Internally, the space reads as a carved cavity, oscillating between shelter and exposure.
This spatial ambiguity destabilizes the reading of scale. The structure can be perceived simultaneously as an inhabitable nest and as a fragment of a larger planetary body. Such oscillation raises questions of use and responsibility, prompting reflection on how shared spaces endure through collective care rather than prescribed function.
Material Logic and Low-Tech Construction
Black schist, sourced locally, constitutes the primary material system of the project. Its layered composition establishes a dialogue between geological time and the incremental process of construction. In contrast to the granite substrate, the schist reinforces a material distinction tied to regional identity and building traditions.
The stonework is assembled in successive layers that reflect processes of accumulation rather than strict modular precision. This approach allows minor adjustments during construction, accommodating the irregularities of hand-shaped stone and on-site conditions. The visible stratification reinforces the reading of the structure as a geological assembly as much as an architectural one.
While digital modeling was used to define the sphere’s geometry through sectional breakdowns, execution relied on low-tech, manual methods. The interplay between digital foresight and analog assembly underscores a construction logic rooted in adaptability, where precision emerges from patient iteration rather than industrial control.
Collective Process and Architectural Agency
Ninho Globo emerged through extended residencies in Salvaterra do Extremo, during which design development and construction unfolded in close proximity to local inhabitants. Workshops and shared building sessions informed both technical decisions and spatial interpretation, integrating local knowledge into the project’s realization.
Participation functions as a structural condition rather than a symbolic gesture. The manual labor required to assemble the sphere distributes authorship across multiple hands, embedding social exchange within the material fabric of the work. This collective process contributes to the project’s durability, both physically and culturally.
Architecture operates here as a mediator between artwork, community practice, and landscape stewardship. By resisting programmatic prescription, the project reframes architectural agency as the capacity to host shared responsibility, enabling the site to remain open to future interpretation and care.
About Atelier YokYok
Atelier YokYok is a creative studio based in Montreuil, France, founded in 2015 by architects Samson Lacoste and Luc Pinsard, joined by Laure Qarémy. Working at the intersection of art and architecture, the studio develops immersive, often site-specific installations that explore the relationships between body and space, materiality, geometry, and landscape, emphasizing sensory experience, narrative, and a poetic engagement with context.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Structural engineers: Agence Milae
- Construction company: Collective construction with Vickie Jayne Wills, Evaldo Borges, João Dias, João João, Tom, Daniel, Rita Louzeiro, Raffaele, Averin, Igor, Tomas, Fernando, Vitor, Luc, Samson; Junta de freguesia de Salvaterra do Extremo; and local inhabitants of Salvaterra do Extremo
- Other contributors: Curation by MAG – Marques de Aguiar and Museu Experimenta Paisagem; Curators Marta Aguiar and Mariana Costa; Project Landscape Together, co-funded by the European Union (Creative Europe) with complementary support from Institut Français à Paris
