Sá Carneiro Square Apartment

The apartment is integrated in the urban design compound of the Francisco Sá Carneiro Square in Lisbon, commissioned to the modernist architect Luís Cristino da Silva (1941-1960) by the Portuguese New State political regime during the first half of the twentieth century.

The apartments of this era typically presented a rational display of spaces, where technical areas (such as kitchen and bathrooms) would be grouped and where there would be a clear distinction between public and private realms.

The concept of this intervention emphasizes this pre-existing rationality by the creation of “a technical core” identified by a visual unity suggested by: (i) the use color, (ii) the simplification of the passageways and (iii) the use of indirect light.

The intervention also maintained the original features of the apartment, such as the high ceilings and the parquet floor, implementing built in storage solutions, indirect integrated lighting and reinforcing the material quality of the interior finishes by using marble cladding in the redesign of the kitchen and of the bathrooms - that historically were considered as services areas but today constitute an essential part of the household.