Architects:Heim Balp Architekten

Area :2750 m²

Year :2022

Photographs :José Campos Architectural Photographer

Lead Architects :Pablo Pita Architects + Heim Balp Architekten

Landscape Architecture :Mudita Studio

Construction Firm :TPS Teixeira Pinto e Soares SA

Project Management :Bairro Lab

Team : Pablo Rebelo, Pedro Pita, Michael Heim, Pietro Balp, Catarina Alegria, Duarte Seabra Alves, Maria Morais, Lia Janela, Lisa Desager

City : Porto

Country : Portugal

In the center of Porto, an abandoned dwelling structure from the early 19th century in a former working-class neighborhood has been rehabilitated into a flourishing microcosm. The project constitutes the intervention in Bairro do Silva, a dwelling structure from the early 19th century, settled inside a city block in Porto. A former working-class neighborhood is typical in the city, also known as "Ilha". The structure was left abandoned in the last decades, but with a strong, bucolic, and romantic identity. It had already a very pronounced spatial richness that came from its complex system – different accesses, alleys, heights, hierarchies, and small-scale housing models.

A village within a city. The idea went through a process of clarity and subtraction. A revision of small complementary structures that time huddled and filled the space. Seeking order, the project sets new hierarchies that change the understanding and usage of the space. Defining a new arrival space, transition alleys, communal areas, and green spaces that replaced what used to be tortuous, undefined, and labyrinthine.