telheiras housing

TELHEIRAS
HOUSING
Rua Fernando Namora (Telheiras district), Lisbon, Portugal, 1993 – 1997
RESIDENTIAL
Location Rua Fernando Namora (Telheiras district), Lisbon
Client Coociclo, Cooperativa de Habitacao, CRL
Programme 48 units in 13 floors,
8 typologies per block in single and duplex apartments
Total Building Costs EUR 6,5m
Construction Cost EUR 650 per sq.m
Gross Built Area 15,000 sq.m
Project Status 1993 (competition, 1st-prize) – 1997 (built)
Facade detail
Southweast facade
www.promontorio.net
TELHEIRAS HOUSING
Rua Fernando Namora (Telheiras district), Lisbon, Portugal, 1993 – 1997
Main entrance
Lobby entrance
Living room
View towards the balcony
Duplex housing hall
Corridor
www.promontorio.net
TELHEIRAS HOUSING
Rua Fernando Namora (Telheiras district), Lisbon, Portugal, 1993 – 1997
1st and 2nd floor plans 1. Bedroom 2. Living room 3. Kitchen 4. W.C. 5. Hall
North and South facade
www.promontorio.net
TELHEIRAS HOUSING
Rua Fernando Namora (Telheiras district), Lisbon, Portugal, 1993 – 1997
Balcony
The two apartment blocks were designed
on the outcome of a shortlist competition
promoted by Coociclo, an independent
non-profit housing cooperative that was
established after the revolution of 1974
with the purpose of providing housing for
the middle-classes, thereby short-cutting
the marketing cost of developers and
improving the overall quality of the market.
In a new and harshly urban suburb,
immersed between highways and an
inventory of postmodern pastiche, this
building was conceived to effectively
function as a social condenser: A building
where the balcony, –the outcast space of
the post-Athens chart suburbia–, could
reinstate its condition of inhabitability,
as opposed to a mere compositional
adornment. By their sheer size, the
The received volume of the ensemble is
balconies would realistically function
the consequence of a strict compliance
as suspended patios, wherein, shielded
with the techno-functional and
by a system of louvers, people could
bureaucratic stipulations of the city master gather to have lunch and children could
plan. Notwithstanding, in the competition play in much the same way as they
scheme, PROMONTORIO proposed
would in the backyard of a suburban
all the apartments as duplex (doublehome. In that regard, the concept draws
floor); the idea being a kind of critical
from the expectations prefigured in the
reconstruct of the Corbusian immeublenostalgic paradigm of the urban singlevilla, where verandas could function as
family house, made irreconcilable by
double-height suspended gardens.
metropolitan concentration.
www.promontorio.net
Later in development of the scheme,
PROMONTORIO was asked to introduce
single-floor apartments, in addition
to the duplex typology. The façades
initially conceived as open courts
exclusively for duplex dwellings, had to
accommodate yet another rationale based
in singular window units scattered on the
elevations. The apparent randomness,
albeit perplexing, is true to the functional
needs of the by now highly complex
typological combinations. The hierarchy
of the diverse compositional elements
is restrained by the string course
representation of the floor slabs, while the
simplicity of materials –light gray fibber
cement cladding, exposed concrete and
aluminium– is contrasting against the
colourfulness of the surroundings.