Flat in Santa Catarina
This mansard flat is located at the top of the steep narrow Rua do Vale, which links Rua dos Poiais de São Bento to Largo de Jesus. The building is characterised by its classic language and constructive system, known as gaiola (an internal wooden cage filled up with masonry) of five floors plus the attic. From the last storeys one can see the square and the 18th-century façade of Nossa Senhora de Jesus Church to the north, the hill of Santa Catarina to the east, and the Tagus to the south.
The unit, which has about 50 sq.m. of floor space, had five minuscule juxtaposed rooms, a small unused attic, and a minuscule kitchen and bathroom. The interior was characterised by what was left of the richness of its carpentry work: the tongue and batten ceilings, the doors and respective door frames and hardware, the window frames,
the wood dividing walls and the plank wood flooring.
The aim of the intervention was to readapt the exiguous juxtaposed rooms, taking advantage of the views and the subtle natural light, enhanced by the existing windows and by those proposed with surgical precision, producing a continuity with the pre-existing constructive system and language.
The kitchen remained in its original location but was enlarged to assume its usual position as a central and distribution area. From the kitchen one can reach all other spaces, whose functions have not been attributed, respecting the programmatic instability of this kind of typologies.
The result is a language that creates an ambivalent space where the differences between the notions of existing heritage and the assertion of contemporaneity cohabit, but are also subtly softened.
Architecture: Sofia Saraiva + Pedro Segurado Quintino Rogado
Collaboration: Roberto Alves Gomes + Tiago Atalaia
Structural Engineering: Riscatejo - Projectos e Construção Lda – Eng. João Espiga
Construction: Fantastic Style, Lda - Eng. Roman Komov
Client: Jorge Miguel Fernandes
Date: Project 2013/ Construction 2014
Location: Santa Catarina, Lisboa
