Arcádia

Arcádia is a collaborative installation created for Lisbon Design Week 2025 that brings together the spatial vision of Spacegram, the artistic narrative of Oficina Marques, and the ceramic heritage of Viúva Lamego. Conceived as a “jogo a três mãos” (a game played by three hands), the project reimagines the traditional display of tiles as an immersive, temple-like structure that functions as a joyous sanctuary dedicated to the natural world.

Rather than existing as a static object, Arcádia was designed as a spatial experience that invites movement, curiosity, and moments of pause, echoing the interior–exterior duality of ancient Greek or Roman temples while subverting expectations of what a tiled “box” can be. The architecture plays with a deliberate sense of duality: on the outside, white glazed ceramics highlight form, volume, and subtle relief, emphasizing the purity of the structure; inside, the space erupts into earthy jewel tones of green, yellow, and brown, evoking an untamed, mythological wilderness alive with the spirit of Arcadia as an idyllic territory where humans and nature coexist in harmony.

Stepping into the structure reveals a hidden sanctuary where the wild character of the tiles stands in contrast to the controlled built environment. At the centre, a water feature anchors the composition, reflecting the handmade tiles and amplifying their textures, so that light, water, and glaze interact in a continuously shifting play of reflections. This interplay transforms the installation into a dynamic environment that changes with the viewer’s position, concealing and revealing itself like a labyrinth and encouraging a slower, more contemplative form of looking.

For Spacegram, Arcádia is less about escape and more about reawakening a sense of wonder, embodying a shared “Tusa de Viver” – a celebration of life, relationships, and the creative friction between history and the contemporary. By merging heritage craftsmanship with modern spatial design, the installation demonstrates how a simple box, usually defined by what it hides, can instead become a luminous vessel for collaboration, imagination, and botanical reverie.