IHRU AWARD 2012: REABILITAÇÃO DE EDIFÍCIO DE HABITAÇÃO (Honourable Mention)

Montijo is a municipality of Lisbon metropolis, located at the Tagus’ South banks.
After the Expo 98, the new Vasco da Gama Bridge, built over the river estuary, increased real-estate speculation namely in new urban areas available close to this new infrastructure’s access. Local industry of cork transformation and livestock started losing their predominance, being substituted by the economy generated by the new housing stock. This process influenced town center depression, where most of the traditional buildings habited by old people, became empty, losing their economic interest.
The intervention in the House of the Street Humberto Sousa mirrors this conjuncture. The renovation of this small building, aimed at inverting the situation, offering a qualified product to rent at the town center. A simple and economic intervention, articulating common building solutions, was provided with the intention of attracting new tenants, interested in the Montijo town center.
The intervention highlighted the art-déco facade, that before the intervention was hidden by an unsuitable colored palette and traditional elements. A long courtyard, inspired in the surrounding urban fabric, was created at the South side of the plot. This new empty space promoted a partial house volume’s subtraction. The new patio resulting from this operation, was coated by with cork panels as a thermic and acoustic sustainable solution. The new cork surfaces filter the light that feature the new house scheme. Inside there is an open space, that takes advantage of the building volume, where several elements organize the domestic living. The mezzanine, the kitchen countertop, and the staircase structure the new typology.