Building on Rua Dr. Francisco Fernandes Lopes no. 20

A contemporary, multi-family and commercial residential building with two floors and retail on the ground floor, resulting from the recent extension of a 1950s building. The original characteristic of a Portuguese architecture of the 1940s and 1950s, common on peripheral and/or industrial locations.

These are characteristics of this typology: the great simplicity of the volumetric treatment, which is sometimes emphasized by the lack of sloping roof coverings and the purity of the higher contours (as is the case here); the clear distinction between ground floor and floor, which translates functional diversity (trade/housing) into material diversity. In this example, this composite diversity has the clear marking of the edge with a flap as a distinction between the ground floor with stone cladding and the plastered floors above.

Windows of different sizes and the use of recurring compositional mechanisms, such as the decomposition of the facade into multiple surfaces, by jumping forward and falling back of these planes in depth and height. The center piece of the dominant facade jumps forward and is supported by a series of consoles arranged as decoration. The stairwell has an accent in the high and narrow, slightly protruding side strip and the series of small square windows that mainly accentuate the continuous height.