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Casa da Porta Vermelha

This house is a project for an ephemeral home (May 2008 / September 2009), in a building that will afterwards be totally demolished and refurbished.
The project location is on the ground floor of a 19th century derelict building at Prazeres, Lisbon. A shirt tailoring factory operated on this floor. The factory extended towards an enclosed courtyard and a small warehouse at plot rear-end.
During the development permission process, there was a decision to transform the shirt factory into a transitory house, on the ground floor, taking advantage from the courtyard. This should be a low cost construction work, 20.000 Euros as a budget limit, because it was possible that these temporary construction works wouldn’t be t be included on the definitive scheme.
This temporary works’ main goal was to take the chance to inhabit the space of an ongoing project. This way it was possible to gather key information for the final house design. Information like: light and acoustic quality, specific differences between day and night, season changes, especially between summer and winter season.
The house has three distinct spaces: living room, courtyard and bedroom.
The living room is a large space with 3,50m, head height. There is also a kitchen counter a dining area. These spaces are directly facing the courtyard and the street, though the factory’s window front.
The courtyard is a 6X5m space, south facing. There are growing ivies, and other plants collected while living in other houses and there is also an outdoor shower.
The bedroom, has 4,50m, head height, connects with the bathroom, equipped with an indoor shower.
The floor finishes are grinded screed floors on its original colour. On the courtyard the existing screed floor was kept.
One of the main house qualities is, definitely, the court yard strong relation. When visitors arrive, they comment that they feel like they are in a countryside house instead of a city’s house. This is odd but still amusing.
The link between the house and the street is though the shop window which is quirky, however, highlighting the house urban quality.
In the future, the rooftop terrace of the new house will magnify these emotions, from there it will be possible to see the river, the Tagus Bridge and the planes arriving and leaving.

LOCATION RUA GILBERTO ROLA, 29, LISBON, PORTUGAL
PROJECT 2006
CONSTRUCTION 2009
GROSS FLOOR AREA 145 m2
ARCHITECTURE JOSÉ ADRIÃO – PRINCIPAL
RUI DIDIER – PROJECT MANAGER
GENERAL CONTRACTOR HOUSE VALUE
PHOTOGRAPHY CARLOS CEZANNE

38.705265,-9.172617
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