The architectural project for this house was born simultaneously from a void and from a dance: the unbuilt space of the patio separates and unites the two volumes that make up the intervention and that seem to want to communicate through a dance.
The house sought to create a relationship of dialogue, not only with the urban front in which it operates, but also with the immediate surroundings. Taking into account that this is an area in a process of constructive and use transformation, the basic premise was to design the building in relation to the pre-existing buildings, but also, and above all, to endow it with characteristics that would allow it to dialogue in the future with new neighboring constructions, something that was confirmed, since new contiguous buildings appeared in the meantime.
Article source: António Paulo Marques, Arquiteto e Associados, Lda
This private initiative residential project is located next to the Circunvalação, on the northern edge of the city of Porto. The plot has a trapezoidal configuration and faces rua Nova do Rio. The building’s location in the center of the plot allowed openings to be created on all its facades. Using existing alignments in the surroundings, two volumes were proposed that establish a relationship of great proximity and tension with each other. Vertical communications and distribution spaces are located in the center, in the interstice formed by the two volumes. The access to the building converges to its center, this route is accentuated by the proximity and tension between the volumes The program organizes two T0 apartments and fourteen T1 apartments, spread over four floors. A basement floor was dedicated to parking. From the outside, the building’s facades are treated in a monochromatic light gray tone, which predominates in all its constructive elements. The windows obey to a random and dynamic matrix composition that at certain times breaks the corners of the volumes.
After acquiring a 592 sq/m site on one of the most characteristic avenues in the city of Oporto, the clients approached us with the intention of designing a collective housing building for the upper middle class, with two basic premises: the valorization of the site, and that all apartments be complemented with generous terraces. As always, and understanding that architecture is part of an economic and social mechanism bigger than itself, we sought to develop a timeless building that would add value to the site and ensure the highest possible economic profitability. Considering that all architectural interventions express themselves as cells belonging to a larger organism, and as such, depend on a good synergic relationship with their surroundings, we proceeded to the analysis of the site’s constraints.
Four years, a global pandemic and several contractors, after the first conversation under the August sun, O Marmorista opened its doors.
The initial challenge was to transform an old marble workshop built in the 19th century, located in the heart of the financial area of the city of Porto, in a bar where one can have a unique meal or in a restaurant where one can listen to the best music, without reservations, formalities or pretensions.
Starting from the existing building, the project foresees its conservation, alteration and necessary expansion to respond to the intended program; the first purpose will be to protect and enhance the building, as well as the surrounding garden. Demolition of part of the building in the far northeast is expected, keeping the volume on the face of Padre Luís Cabral street.
The São Bento Residences project is located on a notable corner of Porto’s Historic Centre, next to São Bento Station, just a few meters from the main cathedral and the city’s central avenue. This corner results from a 1930’s demolition plan of an extensive side of Rua do Loureiro (18th century street) for the development of a modern road axis: Avenida D. Afonso Henriques. This axis generated an open “wound” in the city centre, an urban void that exposed a granite escarpment (resulting from the demolition), presently maintained and requalified by the municipality as a landscape fragment.
Architecture Project: Atelier Pedra Líquida – Nuno Grande and Alexandra Coutinho (coordination), Carlos Campos, Catarina Fernandes, Hugo Amaral, Maria Manuel Barreiros, Inês Ribeiro; Ana Sousa and Filipa Figueiredo (building control)
When OTTOTTO studio removed the plaster from the walls of this house, two imposing stone walls were revealed. Their beauty made it inevitable to keep them in sight, adding just a new layer, in metallic mesh, to blend the 20th century with the new structure and skylight.
Article source: Bernardo Amaral Arquitectura e Urbanismo
This nineteenth-century townhouse placed in Porto’s historical center was recently transformed by a real estate developer into a collective housing building with 8 apartments (studios, one and two-bedroom apartments). Having kept the existing central staircase and its lightwell, each apartment has one sole front, either facing the street or the backyard. The refurbishment project focuses on one of these apartments, located on the penultimate floor and facing South. Despite the narrow lot and irregular shape, we tried to re-organize the interior space taking advantage of it’s potential for a two-bedroom apartment.
A flat renovation is a bit of an architectural exercise.
It misses the stress facing the empty paper. It misses the urban dimension. It misses the expression of the big individual options. It misses the complexity, time and length of the full narrative. It is about rewriting a tale: few characters, a limited space and in a brief timeline.
According to Eça, “in a tale everything needs to be exposed with a clear and simple line: about the characters (…) only the obvious trace (…) that defines a personality; about feelings only what fits in a glance (…); about the landscape only what is far away, in a unique color ”.
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