Travessa das Águas Livres | Pedro Carrilho Arquitectos

"Travessa das Águas Livres" is a rehabilitation and expansion intervention of an exclusively residential building with an area of 3000 m². This project involves demarcating the various intervention periods of the building, past and present, and this proposal is one of those metamorphosis and opportunity chapters for urban reframing.

It is intended to highlight the different times of the building, these being the original construction that refers to an industrial structure on floors 0 and 1; from the expansion at the time of 1912, which included the 2nd floor and the central turret on the east façade and the new contemporary intervention in relation to the mansard floor and the metallic volume. It is a dialogue between the pre-existence and the contemporary proposal.

Regarding the building to be rehabilitated, the proposal is to maintain the pre-existing exclusively residential use, recovering the decorative and architectural elements of heritage interest that link the building to the time and history of the place, in order to preserve its identity and authenticity, of the place, thus returning it to the city.

With the objective of emphasizing the dialogue between the new and the existing, it was decided to assume materialities and languages that correspond to this intention of marking epochs and distinguishing interventions. In the 'old' building, materials and elements were chosen that refer to the original era, such as decorative skirting boards recreating the originals, worked embossed shutters and molding design.

In turn, the new building assumes this differentiation and the contemporary character of the intervention through the use of a perforated metallic ‘skin’, which surrounds this volume from the outside, creating a dynamic and play of light on the façade. Inside, contemporary spaces were created, with minimalist details and innovative solutions suited to the nature of the building. In organizational terms, a single access entrance to the residential building was defined, where there is a large atrium for distribution to the upper floors and basement.