Project 12 / 2023
Rua do Norte Apartment
Lisbon, Portugal 38°42'40"N 9°08'34"W
Everything old in this apartment was kept. Everything new is 90 millimetres thick and made of stone.
Project story
Under six layers of later work sat the original gaiola — the anti-seismic timber cage the city rebuilt itself with after 1755. It was in good condition and is now visible in three rooms.
New work is confined to four stone thresholds that stand clear of the historic walls and carry the plumbing, wiring, doors and storage.
Context
The building is listed, and nothing may be fixed to the party walls. The thresholds are therefore self-supporting and entirely reversible.
Windows were rebuilt to the original section with slim double glazing, gaining 5 dB on a street that never sleeps.
Materiality
Lioz limestone, quarried an hour north, for the thresholds; the same stone honed for floors in the wet rooms.
Original pine boards were lifted, turned and relaid. Walls are lime plaster, tinted with the pigment found under the skirtings.
Spatial experience
The enfilade is restored, so the flat can be read end to end — 21 metres, five rooms, four thresholds, one view of the river.
The thresholds are deep enough to sit in. In practice this is where people put themselves.
Drawn from the survey
Contours as found, footprint as built, levels measured from the site datum. North is 275 degrees from page top.
Levels · metres from datum
- +13.900Third floor, apartment
- ±0.000Rua do Norte
