Matobra opened an innovative space for young architects, designers and engineers

Coimbra has a free work, exploration and experimentation laboratory for young architects, designers and engineers, with access to the most sophisticated graphic programs and catalogs of the main brands of construction materials.

MatobraLAB, inaugurated on Friday afternoon, is made available by Matobra – Construção e Decoração Materials, with the aim of being a support tool for young professionals who, according to the company, “usually have less professional stability and, therefore, , have the opportunity to improve their skills”.

“We managed in one space to provide young professionals with the best tools available on the market and thus allow them to skip a few steps to implement themselves more quickly and develop their work, taking risks and creating”, said general director José Guilherme.

According to him, MatobraLAB allows working with the best options for construction and decoration materials, through expensive technological tools, with project software that, due to the high cost, “is often closed to young architects, designers or engineers just starting out. career.”

“We have received great enthusiasm from potential users around this project and the suppliers themselves [de materiais e equipamentos] they are very involved and excited about the reach it can have,” he added.

It is a “totally innovative” laboratory, highlighted José Guilherme, expressing “a lot of hope” in the project that he considered pioneering at national and European level.

“We have no information from our suppliers, including some large multinationals, that there is anything like this in the country or at European level”, he highlighted.

With capacity for five users simultaneously, the space will be open from Monday to Friday, from 8 am to 9 pm, but if necessary it can also open on weekends and at night, “depending on the user’s needs”.

Matobra, according to José Guilherme, is available to extend the project to other strategic points in the city and, eventually, to other points in the region.

“This is a medium/long-term project, which is very much based on the company’s maxim ‘friends, friends, business included’, and which makes us happy due to the social component associated with it”, he said.

With 58 years of activity in Coimbra, Matobra is a nationwide family company, in its third generation, with 50 employees and an annual turnover of 13 million euros.