Small is More

This book and the projects that it document and analyzepretend to be the starting point for a reflection about the quantified space-sometimes perceived as really SMALL. In our world Architecture became a media phenomenon where the awesomeness and complexity of constructed forms is an objective to the endless quest for visibility. In these circumstances architects prefer BIG spaces-they are more flexibleeasier to managemore spectacular and more desirable becausein generallarger in size corresponds to MORE visibility and to a higher status of projects. Moreoverit seems to be a direct connection in people''s minds between the size of the buildings and their qualitative classificationand frequent being SMALL is seen as something that is outside architecture or at least out of its erudite aspects.The works that illustrate this work are SMALLmost of them built in Portugal. Howeverit seems that the issues they represent are universal.Hence we have opted for a bilingual edition-in Portuguese and English with peer-to-peer text.The reader may find slight differences between the two idioms wich is due to the purpose of clarifying the meaning of some parts of the text.