Nowadays, urban regeneration has become a standard word in an architect’s vocabulary. The tabula rasa modern formula has been superseded by the new generation. Starting off from the pre-existing construction, their aim is to understand it and justify it, in order to add a new step to the life of the space.
Apartment in Portela project seeks to apply this approach to a 1980s flat, in a housing neighbourhood, in the outskirts of Lisbon. Portela de Sacavém Urban Plan (1960-1979) was a prototype for suburb satellite dormitories around the city. This housing complex was designed as a functional city, with its high-density blocks deployed to achieve best exposure to natural elements, built around a civic centre and its urban park.
Today, its architectural unity still determines its urban image, recognisable by the set of blocks and towers, identical in its urban identity. However, on a closer look, this unity hides multiple buildings, constructed by different builders that introduced enhancements to the original architecture project, thus creating a complexity of different typologies that share a common base: the concrete structure.
The original apartment plan was clear in its functional design, as a paradigmatic typology of a common building of its time. Through the stairs and lift core, one enters the flat in a crossing hall, which mediates the social areas (living and dining) and services (kitchen, pantry, maid’s room) from the private areas (3 bedrooms), from the interior bathrooms.
As a start, the intervention defines the existing concrete structure as a fundamental and distinctive element, taking the leading role within the new space. The free-plan allowed a clarification of space, by removing existing elements and demolishing obsolete rooms for today’s contemporary life. Social and services were combined into one large space, becoming the house social node and taking advantage of the sunlight from the fenêtre-en-longueur.
The concrete frames are expressed and work as a datum for the new designed elements. Doors, cabinets and finishes follow this new datum. A large wooden cabinet serves as a background of the social node, providing storage to the house as library, bar, cupboard, wardrobe and cloakroom. At the opposite wall, the new kitchen cupboards, in the same material, provide consistency to the room.
A herringbone timber floor is laid throughout the flat underlining the strategy for a unitary space. It is only interrupted by the terrazzo finish floor of the kitchen and bathroom floor, made from local white marble, limestone. Artificial lighting is designed to complement natural sunlight and to create indirect lighting to the new elements shaded areas and working stands.
Authors: André Rodrigues Costa, Marina Malagolini and Rodrigo Lino Gaspar
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