Ricardo Bak Gordon . renders: © Stefano Farina
This consultation offers a wonderful opportunity for debate on the city of Lisbon and its future, and is noteworthy for this reason alone.
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City/Density or Note on the Contemporary Metropolis
We believe that the future of the city will inevitably involve ensuring the quality of public spaces, reserving land as far as possible for constructing places accessible to all. Only in this way will we be able to guarantee areas of open space allowing protection from the vicissitudes of urban life, while simultaneously accepting the metropolitan nature of the city, increasing the density of its urban fabric through its inhabitants, visitors and a multitude of functions and activities linked to citizens.
Based on these principles of balance, we have diagnosed the problems facing the Portugália neighbourhood, allowing us to propose a solution providing the best of both worlds.
The Portugália factory, City/Neighbourhood
Our proposal comprises an overarching horizontal element, an ‘infinite’ square, extending across the entire area of intervention. The pre-existing facilities – the Portugália Factory and Restaurant –, as well as three vertical buildings, are located above this public square. Their strategic location allows for a diverse range of empty spaces, and promotes the relationship between this new development and the surrounding area. Yet it is the combination of these squares and the numerous activities which they will host which represent the transformative potential of the proposal. To provide public space where none currently exists.
Construction, Landscape and Programme
The use of the square through the three vertical buildings obeys very specific criteria, both from the perspective of the parties and in terms of the composition of the ensemble.
It represents a mark imprinted on the horizontal plane, from which the archetypal form of a house growing in height extrudes, giving rise to either the three mixed-use towers or a succession of empty, adjoining spaces, which may also be read as a single square with an organic geometry.
The tower intended exclusively for residential use is located in the corner formed by Rua Pascoal de Melo and Rua António Pedro, so as to bring it closer to an urban environment more closely suited to its use.
However, it is not strictly located in the bounds of the corner, but instead is set back in order to offer the neighbourhood and city one of the many squares indicated in this project.
The tower which will contain the student accommodation and housing for elderly people is purposefully located in the very centre of the intervention, above Av. Almirante Reis, asserting the distinctive feature of the programme: its intergenerational nature.
Comprising office space and housing, the south tower is located on the edge of Rua Marques da Silva, although its main entrance opens onto the central square. Indeed, this tower will replace the Planasa building, configuring the intervention on Plot B.
The ground floor in all the towers comprises commercial space which activates the various environments in the square.
Through the geometry of each of the buildings, the chromatic basis linked to them and their correlation in the space, a dynamic landscape emerges, capable of meeting expectations of the site.
This new urban landscape, whose area of influence will extend far beyond its physical boundaries, was planned in such a way as to provide a large public space, able to “reconnect past, present and future”. This objective is attained both through the way in which the façade of Rua António Pedro is linked to the new intervention, in the opening up of a series of diverse public spaces to the neighbouring community, and through the programmatic capacity offered by the new site.
Inside, a sizeable linear garden extends as if it were a huge lung, largely featuring trees of the Phytolacca dioica species, which completes the linking of all the open spaces, as well as constituting a green expanse visible from any direction.
The Construction Process and Sustainability
The façades, made from pre-fabricated, coloured concrete elements, with aluminium joinery and sun protection systems, are structured in an on-off pattern allowing them to relate to the surrounding 1940s buildings.
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COMPETITION REHABILITATION OF PORTUGÁLIA’S BLOCK
Technical schedule
Architecture. Ricardo Gordon
Collaboration. José Pedro Cano, Catarina Farinha, Daniela Cunha
Site location. Lisbon, Portugal
Client. Sete Colinas Real Estate Investment Fund
Contractor. –
Consultants. Afaconsult, F|C Arquitectura Paisagista
Areas. 64 906 m² Construction
Date. Competition 2017
Cost. 49.543.070,00 €
Images. Stefano Farina
