The key feature of this building is a massive portico that floats over the school gardens. The structure arises from the combination of the two programmatic requirements. The need to create an institutional iconic image, and the inclusion of a set of amphitheatres. The result is achieved in one of the largest concrete structures in the world. In an article published in the Design Magazine, CC Sullivan wrote: Montenegro's School of Technology and Management never fails to create opportunities for reflection. The theatricality and grandeur are unmatched elsewhere...

Nuno Montenegro's office boast a team that is able to cater for the full range of technical project planning specialties, from urban planning to design of public and private developments. The set of partnerships it has entered into and its drive to foster experimental research are the two cornerstones behind its concept. Montenegro's team is able to provide a design-oriented development concept, hands-on benefit of a small dynamic company, with a well-built network of knowledge connectors, and a technological lead and design expertise of a larger one. In its more than 10 years of design practice the company has earned a reputation for excellence in the master planning and the design of distinctive residential, educational, laboratory facilities, recreational, retail and mixed-use projects. The approach to projects is collaborative both within the practice itself and in its relation with clients, consultants among others. These lines of collaboration are established and maintained right through to completion of a project, allowing projects, from inception, to be considered holistically - from the aesthetic dimensions through to questions regarding environment, structural integrity and issues related to cost, program and value.

The Polytechnical Institute of Beja (Instituto Politécnico de Beja) is a state-run polytechnic institute of higher education, comprising several schools. It is located in Beja, on the south region of Alentejo, Portugal. It was established in 1979 and has about 3,500[1] students (as of 2007).