M Apartment

The apartment is in Miraflores, one of Lisbon’s suburban areas. It used to be a five person family home. Nowadays they are just two.
Due to its depth and bad sun orientation (north, northwest) it lacks natural light.
Since the apartment is often used for large family meetings, the project consisted on the demolition of several partition walls in order to transform/include almost all the space originally used in distribution areas, corridors and unused bedrooms into one large social area composed by the living room, kitchen and dining room. As a result of that the apartment’s spatial structure becomes clearer - social and private areas are ordered along two orthogonal axes. At the end of each axis a large mirror is used to dramatically increase perspective and reflect light.
Brighter and warmer materials, such as riga pine flooring, white wall and enamel paintings, as well as indirect light are used to intensify natural light.

more pictures

Project Team
Cátia Costa, Dario Marzan, Daniela Silva

Contractor
Obrisuki

Carpenter
Lusomóvel

Photographs
Leonardo Finotti

Arquitectura & Construção

revista Arquitectura & Construção, nº 58, dezembro/janeiro 2010

Cathedral of the Aragonese Castle - 3rd Prize

International ideas competition for the spatial reconfiguration of the Cathedral of Ischia's Aragonese Castle
Ischia, Italy

The double skin expanded brass cladding, reconstructs the missing shell of the dell’Assunta’s Cathedral and reproposes its original spatial enclosure. The old and the new remain recognizable, maintaining their own identity.

A zenital lightwell drips into the apse confering it an unequivocal sacred dimension. The proposed circular drum, covered with a glass, protects the stuccos from the weather.

The light penetrates, it’s disseminated indirectly, in a reflected and mysterious way; more than any other material, it determines the volumetric effects of space, and creates the atmosphere. Golden, despite its immateriality light is converted into architecture.

The viewer is then seized with an unusual sense of interruption and suspension of time, dazzled by a silent revelation: an “intimate and unmovable” space, a golden mass, a volume without weight, suspended. Surprised by an unexpected and vague, experience, he travels through the space trying to interpret the history, woven, and told by the precious metal.

The brass structure inspires the visitor to, with his imagination, take part of a mental reconstruction process, thus making him a participant, an actor and not just a spectator.

The weft becomes a moment of contemplation, his look pierces the reticulum and gains the transparency. His eyes look beyond the physical limit described by the reflection of the precious metal, which suddenly dissolves and dilutes.

Inside is outside.

The horizon appears: the island of Ischia and the sea.

The golden texture concludes its function, the illusion of a timeless construction.

TERNULLOMELO + PARATELIER


Project Team
Dario Marzan, Carlotta Pinna, Ilaria La Corte, Valentina Lo Presti

Structural Engineering
João Paulo Cardoso (PRPC engenheiros)