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Replacing a former 17th-century building, demolished due to its imminent collapse, the volume of the first scheme, subtly evoked the traditional stepped volumes of vernacular buildings prior to the 1755 earthquake. The proposal was to finish the building in a combination of plaster and gunite in a manner reminiscent of the architectural ethos of post-war regionalism and its vernacular inflections. The second scheme was submitted and approved in 2020, and started from the premise of matching the volume of the previously demolished historical building. The same vernacular inspiration permeates the façade composition and the various seemingly aleatory details, including ‘unplanned’ windows, cove-like arched porches and the belly-shaped iron window guards.
The site faces the main square of the medieval town of Alcácer do Sal, 80 km southwest of Lisbon. Shaped as an elongated ‘V’ facing the Sado river, the square, with its cafes and restaurants, is the civic centre of the community, running parallel to the town’s commercial street and from where the riverfront promenade starts. the prominent and now vacant corner plot mediates the relationship between the riverfront and the inner commercial street while also crowning the square.
The site faces the main square of the medieval town of Alcácer do Sal. Shaped as an elongated ‘V’ facing the Sado river, the square, with its cafes and restaurants, is the civic centre of the community, running parallel to the town’s commercial street and from where the riverfront promenade starts. Replacing a former 17th-century building, demolished due to its imminent collapse, the prominent and now vacant corner plot mediates the relationship between the riverfront and the inner commercial street while also crowning the square.
This project was submitted and approved in 2020, and started from the premise of matching the volume of the previously demolished historical building. With approximately the same built-up area split into a ground-floor garage and two apartment units —one of which is a duplex— the new volume consists of two raised storeys plus an attic prism with a terracotta-tiled gable roof. A non-covered section of the roof allows for a terrace with a small pool. On the second floor, much like in the first scheme, a corner loggia is posited as a compositional hinge. Below this loggia, and given the plot’s chamfered corner, the volume protrudes at a right angle, descending into a soft curve. The same vernacular inspiration permeates the façade composition and the various seemingly aleatory details, including ‘unplanned’ windows, cove-like arched porches and the belly-shaped iron window guards.
A fantastic project in front of the river side, crowning the main square and respecting the veracular architecture of the place.
A five-partner firm, PROMONTORIO is a full-service architecture, planning, landscaping, interior design and graphics team that began in Lisbon in 1990 as an experimental studio. It consistently grew into a practice of sixty architects, planners, landscape architects, interior designers and graphic designers. Underlying its approach to the urban form, the work of PROMONTORIO has often been identified with the pursuit of a ‘system of robustness’ (i.e. solidity, stability and durability) both in terms of representational meaning and technical research. This in turn, has been implemented and tested in vast construction sites and under challenging time and budget constraints. Ranging from schools, museums and cultural institutions, to housing, offices, hotels and retail, this cohesive and interactive structure enables us to deal with large and complex projects both in terms of design and programme.
