Lisboa-based architecture firm Plano Humano Arquitectos has converted an old service building into a new apartment with automated wooden shutters that add new texture to the existing streetscape in Lisboa, Portugal.

The new apartment, called Edificio Lisbon Wood, was transformed from a state service building - the tourism general offices, into a new apartment that contains 15 residential units and 2 shops, connected by common leisure spaces, such as gardens, a gym and a spa.

The architects wanted to give a new life to an existing building, within it's story and excellent location. The project, covering 3,882-square-metre area, intended to provide the building with features of a current architecture. The firm used new materials, new spaces, new connections to create new experiences for the new established use, to inhabit. 

The building is situated in the city center, taking advantage of the centrality, with the required privacy and retreat. The building offer feeling of living in larger and connected spaces, full of light. 

"We opened the building to the outer space. We extend it on balconies that increase the space of habitation, which thus also happens outdoors, in contact with the open air, a relic in the center of the city. Interior and exterior are in constant dialogue," said the studio.

"We worked the materiality according to its characteristics of comfort, robustness and longevity. the minimalist interior contrasts while connects with the powerful exterior in thermo modified wood."

Wood is the hallmark of the building. Traditional and noble material, allied to the current technology, in the cladding of facades that will always be dynamic, different for each moment of the day and for each apartment. 

The facade is dynamic, it has constant movement, which makes it a mutable, almost living building, that transcends its inner life to the exterior.

The wood is applied in automated shutters, that while privatizing the interior spaces, increase the building's energy efficiency. They limit or allow the interior solar incidence, depending if it is summer or winter, what in a mediterranean city like Lisbon has a great preponderance in thermal confort.

Modular facade diagram

Situation plan

Ground floor plan and first floor plan

2nd floor and 6th floor plan

9th floor and roof floor plan

Section

Elevation

Backside elevation

Axonometric diagram

Shutters - control of natural light

Section - control of natural light

Plano Humano Arquitectos won the WA Award with 2 projects in previous Cycles: with Casa Polivalente // Multipurpose House in the 29th Cycle and Our Lady Of Fátima Chapel in the 27th Cycle.

Project facts

Project Name: Edificio Lisbon Wood

Location: Lisboa, Portugal

Architecture: Plano Humano Arquitectos| Pedro Ferreira e Helena Vieira

Team: Pedro Ferreira, Helena Vieira, Ana Figueiredo, João Martins, Manuel Dinis, Nuno Roque, Vanessa Ferrão.

Engineering: GAPLR– Luis Reis, Ana Henriques, Hermano Henriques, Nuno Santos, Ana Silva, Armando Venâncio, Sérgio Oliveira, Pedro Costa. 

Client: KWIBA Investimentos 

Empreiteiro: CASAIS

Inspection Team: TPF

Use: Habitação e Comércio

Area: 3882m²

Project Year: 2015-2019

All images © João Morgado

> via Plano Humano Arquitectos