I chose to occupy an existing building on Amoreiras Street. This exercise required reinterpreting and rethinking a space that was already built, consolidated, and deeply rooted in its surroundings. The building is set back from the street and neighbouring constructions and dates back to the early 20th century. The house has a demarcated presence and expresses its relationship with the city and its surroundings. It is narrow in its contact with the public road and wider in its rear, resulting in a trapezoidal shape. The house is configured over four levels, with a ground level for commerce and three levels for habitation. The triangular-shaped private garden is adjacent to and borders the Águas Livres Aqueduct, which connects to a nearby reservoir.
The house has a similar typology to that of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its social and public spaces face the street, while the private areas, such as the rooms, kitchen, and bathrooms, are located in the lateral and rear areas of the house. Each level offers an approximate area of 174m2, distributed among thirteen spaces.
The objective of the intervention is to preserve the majority of the house’s interior while surgically removing and freeing up areas that are no longer necessary. These extractions will create vertical gaps, light wells, and voids between floors. The ground floor will serve as an extension of the street, elevating the house and facilitating a seamless transition between the public realm of the street and the city, and the private realm of the garden. Each level contains only the necessary areas for the programmatic dimension of each house. There is one level for a young family, one for renting, and one for students.
The building, which previously offered limited views of the city and its surroundings through narrow, high windows, now establishes a more significant relationship and dialogue with the landscape and the surrounding area. This wider scope encompasses views of the exterior, the aqueduct, the garden, the street, and the city.
From inside, it is possible to observe and appreciate the different atmospheres of the outside world. There is an interrelation between the two worlds, and the inhabitant gains an understanding of the place through the vertical gaps. The house is anchored to the location through its construction, windows, openings, and the images, memories, and symbols they provide.
The house functions as a television screen and a camera, resulting in a constantly changing image. In my thesis, I describe this cosmos and its window, which acts as a blank canvas that is materialized and sketched solely through personal perception, framing of moments, images, and interests. Like Alberti’s Window, the house exposes individuals to the outside world, creating a sense of belonging. The silent interiors provide a blank canvas for each inhabitant to express their individual tastes and impulses. This embodies the desire to abstract present society from technological alienation, which unconsciously and progressively distances us from the natural world and our physical surroundings.