Year 2019-… Location Estoril Area 1160m2

The site is comprised of a 3-storey house and also by a big outdoor area that has several walkways, trees and rough ground. It also has a sloping terrain in which the house’s entry level is placed 5 meters above the street level. Given the degradation state of the complex, the programme includes an increase of the house’s gross floor area as well as an interior renovation. The house is then divided in three apartments, all of which are accessible by independent stairs and a common elevator. On the outdoor area, every apartment has a garden of its own that’s arranged according to the distinctions within the sloping terrain.

The building landscape of Monte Estoril has a variety of houses from architects such as Rafael Duarte de Melo (neo-romantic architecture of the XIX century) and Raul Lino (the ‘Portuguese Houses” model) that serve has a direct influence for the house’s elevations and overall volumetric display.

Year 2018-… Location Cascais Area 850m2

In an historical block near the Cascais Bay, a 2-storey house with an internal garden will have its interiors adapted to a new program while the street facade and the building’s volume gross are left unchanged. The layout consists of four apartments, all of which have access to independent terraces on the back of the building that also lead the inhabitants to the common garden and pool area. There’s an attic appropriation for the two apartments located on the first floor and a garage is placed at the basement level.

While there are new internal partitions as a consequence of the apartments layout, the majority of preexisting elements such as stonework, wood frames, stucco decoration and tiles are either repaired or replaced with similar pieces. In a sense, the overall refurbishment strategy tries to merge two different entities (conservative and modernist) with a conciliatory approach.

Year 2021 Location Venda do Duque Area 170m2

The project is located in Venda do Duque, Alentejo, next to a deactivated train station. The site is remote and surrounded by cork oak and olive trees, typical of the Alentejo’s landscape. The space was previously a small house and a bakery. The two buildings were connected and edited with careful demolitions and strategic additions, with most of the walls retained, as well as the ceilings, vaulted or sloped in timber.

The project celebrates the vernacular architecture found in the pre-existent structure and aims to preserve the memory and character of the space. Retention was the prime strategy. The material palette was the one found – white washed walls, timber, stone and tiles. Local craftsmen used traditional methods to renovate the house, and the majority of the materials were Portuguese.

Year 2019 Location Lisbon Area 105m2

Given the preexisting layout’s simple partition, the refurbishment had direct premises: to maximize the living and dining area, to add an office/reading area and to create more storage for the two bedrooms. In order to have a clear space, a bathroom was removed and gave place to the office while the wall that separated the kitchen from the living room was demolished. The existing corridor was enlarged and a lengthy bookcase is now the main protagonist in the course from the living space to the bedrooms area. Wood (riga), marble (portuguese ‘tiger skin’) and white stucco were the chosen materials that provided a clear scheme throughout the apartment.

Year 2022 Location Comporta Area 145m2

When referring to a work of art, the expression could evoke that process of osmosis between matter and the artist’s body in order to shape an abstract concept— which always implies contrast- but could also suggest that complex mechanism that the work arouses in the viewer relating to it. The aesthetic complacency toward captivating images is counterbalanced by layered meanings, struggles, attempts, personal experiences lying below their catchy surface. (…)

Besides the tension conveyed by the idea of “cute aggression”, the expression I Could Eat You fans out into a series of cross-references, ranging from sexual attraction to exaggerated agonism and personal competition; from the idea of fast consumption to the pleasures of eating. These themes will unfold in the works gathered in the exhibition, that will be served in an original architectural display evoking the typical tablecloths found in Portuguese Tascas.

Text: Sara de Chiara / Venue: Casa da Cultura, Comporta / Art galleries: Fortes D’Aloia & Gabriel, Madragoa, Clearing

Year 2019-2020 Location Lisbon Area 460m2

Located in the east side of Lisbon, Marvila was one of the first industrialized areas of the city. After a period of deindustrialization and decay, this neighbourhood is now being regenerated with new mixed-use buildings, art galleries and parks. Between the river and the train line, this plot is an example of this regeneration. What was before an enclosed quarter fully occupied with warehouses and small industries will be transformed into a new urban block, permeable to the surroundings streets, opening its inner square to the public. At the ground level, the new buildings will be occupied with commercial use and the upper floors will be residential, offering typologies from 2 to 5-bedroom apartments.

Year 2020 Location Lisbon Area 600m2

“Programmed Melancholy” was an exhibition by Gabriel Abrantes that combined 5 films (made between 2008 and 2019) and a series of paintings, drawings and sculptures. Through a series of rooms, the articulation between the two formats was done according to the themes and visual universes proposed by the artist. On the ground floor, plaster walls serve as simple partitions alongside different types of curtains, which were used not only in the form of an opening between rooms but also as a recurrent theme, a ‘grand drape’ that sets the passage from one visual universe to another.

Virtual tour of the exhibition: https://bit.ly/2LXY0dB

Year 2020-… Location Portimão Area 2460m2

A family property in Alvor is considered for a new tourist complex, taking advantage of the 2 acre land which includes a tennis court and a swimming pool. The 2-storey main house built in the 1960s (already functioning today as a B&B facility) and a couple of existing buildings will have internal renovations with a low-impact in its partitions, while the new scheme is comprised of 9 small-scale villas, a multipurpose pavilion and a swimming pool. As the main house is located near the central street, the villas are to be set near a secondary road at the other end of the site, thus leaving the pavilion, the garden and a series of paths as a common space for the visitors.

The villas are placed in a square-shaped envelope and its types differ in scale (one-floor or one-floor with a mezzanine) and also in the parceling of external spaces (one courtyard or two courtyards), two formal features of the vernacular architecture in certain regions of the Algarve.

Year 2021 Location Basel Area 40m2

Art Basel Unlimited

Drawing on the Fondation Beyeler in Basel as its inspiration, the installation ‘The Hunter’s Dream’ explores the relationship between Renzo Piano’s architecture and Ernst Beyeler’s collection of indigenous African art. The paintings and projections were housed in a bespoke pavilion designed to invoke the museum. A light metal structure was wrapped in transparent fabric creating a distinct and intimate ambient, sheltered from the gigantic hanger where the art fair takes place. The project celebrates the synergy between architecture and art and was supported by the artist galleries: Galeria Cristina Guerra, Stephen Friedman Gallery, Galeria Luisa Strina, Galleria Continua.

Year 2019-… Location Lisbon Area 685m2

The existing building is located in a low-density part of the city that remains almost untouched in spite of its urban surroundings (Eixo Norte-Sul, one of the most polluting roads of Lisbon, is right next to the site), and shows a general decayed state. Overall, the building’s envelope is left untouched with the exception of a proposed basement level so that the new program, comprised of student accommodations, can be developed on the inside.

There are two types of studios: one is developed in two levels (basement and ground floor) connected by a metal staircase; while the other is developed on the first floor and has a regular layout of contemporary students residences. There are common spaces such as a kitchen/dining room on the first floor and a laundry space on the basement, while on the ground floor, in a direct relation to the street, a small cafe brings the student community together.

Year 2021 Location Lisbon Area 465m2

SANATORIUM, by Mexican artist Pedro Reyes, is a performative installation in the form of a temporary clinic that combines art and psychology. Created in 2011 for the Guggenheim Museum in New York, it has since been presented in different contexts and institutions, like the Whitechapel Gallery in London (2013) and dOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel (2012).

For this work, the artist developed a series of therapies incorporating techniques from theatre, Gestalt psychology, flow state, group activities and trust-building games, corporate coaching, psychodrama, hypnosis, and popular culture. Conducted by non-professional, ordinary people, the placebo treatments that make up this project are spaces for encounter and dialogue, presenting life-stories and narratives which aim to cure the maladies and diseases associated with contemporary life.

Despite its playful and educational dimension, Reyes presents some of the most pertinent issues of our time: how daily life in great urban centres affects our health and quality of life, and other issues concerning our mental health and emotional, social and psychological well-being.

Text: Inês Grosso | curator of the exhibition

Year 2018 Location Cascais Area 925m2

The plot is located at the west end of Cascais and is integrated within a group of isolated houses, set in the old pine forest of Gandarinha, overlooking the sea. Regardless of the urban context, the pre-existing nature within the plot and its wider context transmit the feeling of being immersed in the woods.

The intuitive gesture to place a building in this land is to preserve the existing pine forest and other trees as much as possible, using the main clearance to build the house while its design intends to use the most of the plot and garden. Rather than encapsulating the entire programme in one single building, the strategy is to create a main family house and ´garden pavilions´ within the trees that accommodate other uses.

The house is a central simple volume organized over two floors, with a patio that lets the light in and creates visual connections across the entire site. The guest quarters, yoga room and pool house are independent small buildings that almost disappear within the trees. Whereas the material palette of the main building is solid and mineral, the ´garden pavilions´ are reflective and so the trees around them are then multiplied.