This single family housing was developed within the limits outlined by the existing building, making use of the roof span, achieved by slight reducing the height of the ground floor and by changing the roof, thus creating sufficient height for this floor to be used for housing also.

The builidng is developed on two floors, with the following distribution:

The ground floor comprises the entrance hall of the dwelling, kitchen and pantry, living room, a bathroom, two bedrooms and an access to the upper floor. On this floor there is also a small garden that will be maintained and expanded through the demolition of the existing laundry which has now been transferred to the garage. On the upper floor, there is a small room, a bedroom and a bathroom.

The implementation of the building results from the Detailed Plan proposed by the Municipality of Espinho.

The proposal stems from the concerns of articulation and qualification of the volume by defining the image of the block and complementing the design of the streets, started earlier, and lastly the concern in creating an architectural object that takes care of the transition of the two streets and makes the edge of the corner, as an exceptional situation.

In addition to these concerns, efforts were made to invest in housing where distribution is privileged.

Externally the building is formed with a modular laminated system in isothermal platelet allowing the acoustic and thermal insulation, creating “Brise-Soleil” in the glazing area, contributing to the qualification of the architectural language as well as to an excellent control of comfort in use.

The option for a building with a gallery distribution and duplex dwellings, helps to typologically mark an exceptional situation that this building must have.

The process of dismantling industrial units in city centres and relocating them on industrial estates in the suburbs has seen the freeing up and reurbanisation of many degraded, over crowded or decharacterised areas into new, structured urban places.

Luso Park is situated in the area where big celluloid manufactoring factory once stood – Luso Celluloid. In agreement with Municipal Planning Restrictions, the project contemplates two perpendicular buildings, one superimposed on the other, one with four and the other with eight floors, designed for housing and trade.

This whole group is marked by a composition among the volumes, that, in turn, complements the buildings and endows them with formal coherence. The lower building’s horizontality is punctuated by vertical elements in the living and cooking areas of the apartments. The vertical building, in its own way marked by horizontal lines that tear open the facade, with accentuated plinths underlining the whole volume.

Both the volumetric composition and the treatment of the surfaces are verified by the use of different materials intended to characterise the volumes.

Aluminium panels cover the horizontal building, and the vertical one is clad in prefabricated exposed white concrete.

The materials contrast with each other and in this way they reinforce the desogn of a coherent unit.

The building’s plans for the apartments and commercial spaces envisage 97 apartments, 9 single-bedroomed. 51 two-bedroomed, 36 three-bedroomed and 1 four-bedroomed plus two shops, and is supportedby an old street to the south with proposed access to the west.

The program established for this building promotes several typologies based on two acces types: there are multiple vertical circulation nodes in the horizontal volume, and internal communal circulation with lesser stair/lift runs in the vertical element.

The basement is designed exclusively for garages and storage.

Located in the Paredes de Coura municipality, the house stems from the desire to recover an existing ruin on the north of the site.

It is formed by two volumes that create a central square: one emerges from the pre-existing structure, following its form and materials; the other responds to the need to comply with the programme established by the client, extending longitudinally along the east boundary of the site, with a different language, setting itself apart from the ruin.

A clear expression of functionality, the house generates a diversity of spaces that relate to the existing structure without disturbing it. On one hand, there are occasional openings in the thick granite walls that evoke the existing structure and, on the other hand, the large windowpanes of the new building conquer the surrounding landscape and permit the building to be part of it.

The access to the house is through a central outdoor courtyard and through a markedly lower-height entrance hall, an articulation element that organizes the programme into the two buildings: in one, the kitchen and the living, adjusted to the uneven terrain; in the other, the bedrooms.

Granite and plaster are the materials of choice, coexisting peacefully in mutual respect of the new for the old.

We were thinking of an open space of contrasts, in a hybrid and perhaps contradictory process, where theatre, cinema, conferences, readings, exhibitions and installations could be some of the components of a more universal and heterogeneous cultural language which we would like to view as the concept for the project behind the work, in spite of… the politics, the crises, the good and the bad will or in other words the constraints that some projects, and this one in particular, go through.

So we said: “Already very constrained by a tight budget combined with an ever present idea of restoring and preserving some memory imposed by this auditorium, the solution required some inventiveness from the outset. The project soon sought to convey an idea of culture, meeting and experimentation, and consequently, tried to resolve a number of needs that ensured an improvement of spatial and technical conditions. This would encourage the accommodation and creation of various modes of expression, mirroring the range of values of communication and knowing that modern life has produced.” 

Today, everything seems to be closer to the initial idea. Porto built a Theatre. Its own.