Travessa dos Pentes 7

Lisbon, Portugal

2018–2015

The plot is located in one of Lisbon’s most rich and intriguing historical districts, which includes a mélange of 18th– and 19th-century buildings, as well as a number of historical landmarks. Designed and built as part of the Marquis of Pombal’s master plan following the 1755 earthquake, the Amoreiras garden is marked by the impressive arches of the 18th-century Águas Livres aqueduct, which ends at the vast water reservoir of Mãe d’Água.  Other landmarks include the former royal silk mill (Fábrica das Sedas) located across the street from the plot, recently converted into an art museum to host the work of the Portuguese painter Maria Helena Vieira da Silva.  In terms of the site itself, the former 1960s building that occupied the deep and narrow plot was demolished, both due to its dilapidated state and its lack of historical value.

The new building is a four-storey townhouse plus attic, with three apartments, garage and a backyard garden. The building was originally devised for a family to accommodate both the parents and their two unmarried children together. The overall ensemble was conceived to sustain and accommodate the evolving stages of the family as they aged, combined with a certain intentional domesticity. The parents’ ground-floor apartment is designed as a U-shaped layout around a courtyard garden, with the living room and the kitchen at opposite ends. Similarly, on the first floor, the parents’ suite faces the other bedrooms on the opposite façade. There are two further apartment units on the second and third floors respectively, the latter being partly executed as an attic configuration. The street façade suggests a certain restrain, both in terms of composition and material presence, with receding post-and-lintel stone-clad porte-fenêtres. In contrast, the courtyard façades open in wide spans of aluminium sliding doors, painted wooden shutters and steel handrails, echoing the vitreous character of late-19th-century cast-iron balconies. Inside, the finishing consists of solid Riga-pine flooring in the living room and bedroom areas, with decorative cement floor tiles in the entrance, circulation and wet areas.

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South-east façade

Location: Travessa dos Pentes 7, Lisbon, Portugal
Client: Private
Scope of services: Architecture
Project brief: Townhouse with three units
Gross floor area: 825 sq. m (plus 85 sq. m courtyard garden)
Project status: 2015 (concept design) – 2018 (built)
Photography: João Guimarães