Cordoaria Building

Porto, Portugal

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Santa Catarina Apartment Building

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Ribeira House

Cordoaria Building

Porto, Portugal

Firm

diana barros arq studio

Type

Residential › Multi Unit Housing

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2018

SIZE

0 sqft - 1000 sqft

The architectural intervention proposal aims to honor the original building, estimating the existing building system and investigating its ability to adapt to contemporary comfort needs.
The structure of the building complies with what was common in this model of bourgeois housing from the end of the 19th century, in Porto, being built, in general, by exterior walls of granite masonry, interior walls in partition and floors and roof in wood.
Access to the house is via a side entrance on the ground floor that is transferred to a side corridor, perpendicular to the street. The central stairwell, lit by a skylight, has an imposing presence in the building and all the floors are arranged symmetrically to this, dividing it into two halves.
In order to understand the state of conservation of the building, a meticulous survey of the condition of all the elements that integrate it was carried out. We concluded that the structure of the floors, roof and flights of stairs was in a reasonable state of conservation, but the remaining materials were subject to intense degradation.
The program change led to a change in the internal organization and typology changes, but the constructive system and the central stairwell were maintained and recovered. Safety and comfort conditions have been improved and all infrastructure has been updated.
Regarding the plan design, given the spatial rigidity that the central stairs decree, the project continued to be influenced by this division and eight T0 apartments were created, one fraction to the west and another to the east, per floor.
Given the small scale of the apartments, wood was adopted as the material of choice to compose and neutralize the space. All carpentry work was done in maritime pine plywood and the original wooden floors were replaced by new ones.
The sleeping space is elevated in relation to the living area to make it more sheltered and welcoming, also allowing the creation of cabinets on the wall that were created when we raised this space.
The design of the kitchen arises from the desire to be able to function as a kitchen or as a shelf, undoing the image of the traditional kitchen.