Beato 1904
Located on the Lisbon riverfront, between the 17th-century Convent of Grilo and the ongoing Beato Creative Hub, which hosts many of the start-up companies springing from the Web Summit, this old wine and olive oil warehouse has been converted into a co-working space that, without losing its historical character, is flexible and friendly. The 3-storey building has two street frontages, respectively towards North, on Grilo street, and towards South, on Manutenção street. Toward West, it is adjacent to other warehousing facilities, while towards East, it has its own courtyard and borders a vacant plot.
Structurally, this historical mono-pitched roof ensemble was built in a system of thick masonry walls, arched on the ground-floor, that hold together a wood structure of crossbeams and an extremely large wood-boarding floor. In terms of restoration of the existing building considered the following tenets: (a) to clear up the space of all residual and unqualified adaptations that had been layered onto it across decades of different appropriations and uses, (b) to make the best use of the existing structure minimizing both demolition and new construction, and (c) selectively opening gaps both in the gable roof and in the East facade to bring natural light deep into the building. The East courtyard serves as
access to the vertical distribution core for the floors and access to the adjacent parking.
Making use of this courtyard, which already had the markings of pre-existing arches on the ground floor walls, new openings where made using the former metric and replicating them on the upper floors.
In this façade, an industrial metal grating staircase that culminates in a wide balcony, connects the different floors, serving both as a fire escape and an outdoor area with views towards the river. As for the interior space, it has been cleared of all non-original partitions, while WC, pantry and storage are clustered in a single block, releasing the tactile and tectonic presence of large floor wood planks and ceiling beams. Masonry walls are finished in yellow burned lime, while the interior elevator core is made of raw steel plates.
