BOM SUCESSO – Architecture Golf and Nature | Óbidos – Portugal
On Portugal's Silver Coast, on the banks of the Óbidos Lagoon and about an hour from Lisbon, Bom Sucesso Resort was built on the site of a former eucalyptus monoculture as a contemporary village that deconstructs the standardised regionalist holiday resort model. The project involves 23 nationally and internationally renowned architects, including Pritzker Prize winners Álvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto de Moura, alongside Manuel Aires Mateus, Gonçalo Byrne, João Luís Carrilho da Graça, Josep Llinás and British architect David Chipperfield.
The architects followed a shared set of rules to ensure the architectural harmony of the development: traditional façade materials, green roofs and single-storey volumes. The result is a low building density, with only 7% of the 160 hectares occupied by construction, over 15,000 trees planted (including more than 2,000 ancient olive trees, some over a thousand years old) and numerous vantage points overlooking the lagoon.
The resort’s sporting heart is the Guardian Bom Sucesso Golf, an 18-hole championship course (par 72) designed by celebrated British architect Donald Steel, opened on 27 September 2008 across more than 60 hectares of hilly terrain overlooking the lagoon and the Atlantic Ocean, recognised as a European Tour Destination since 2016. The resort also includes a 5-star hotel with spa, designed by Eduardo Souto de Moura, and is planned to comprise around 600 residences in total between villas and townhouses, with over 400 already built, each conceived as a unique architectural work integrated into the natural landscape.
Year
from 2004 (project launch), golf course opened in 2008
Architects
Álvaro Siza Vieira, Eduardo Souto de Moura, David Chipperfield, Manuel Aires Mateus,
Gonçalo Byrne, João Luís Carrilho da Graça, Josep Llinás and others (23 firms involved)
Golf Course Architect
Donald Steel
