Cabeço da Bola Cooperative Housing
Status: Competition - Awarded 2nd Prize
Site: Lisbon, Portugal
Architecture: Atelier 17
Team: Nuno Castro Caldas + Sara Brandão + Sebastião Taquenho
Collaboration: Rita Figueiredo
Engineering Coordination: Edgar Brito
Client: Sociedade de Reabilitação Urbana Lisboa Ocidental
Total area: 1 527,60 m2
Date: 2023
Proposal: The proposal aims to respond to the program from a perspective of urban integration, respecting the scale and history of the place, while emphasising the principles of neighbourhood, social coexistence and community life.
The proposal was seen as an opportunity to offer spaces of collective use, with different levels of privacy, promoting the development of community activities at different scales. Public spaces were designed at ground floor level, with active fronts towards Largo do Cabeço da Bola, encouraging its collective use, both by residents and visitors.
Evoking the historical memory of long balconies and galleries made of steel structures, located in some of Lisbon traditional neighbourhoods, the proposal included a circulation gallery that articulated different buildings and organised common areas for those living in the cooperative housing scheme. This space, while providing access to all dwellings and to a common garden, also promoted opportunities of gathering and exchange between neighbours.
Window frames and steel structures were painted in a dark red tone, remembering Palácio da Bemposta, a building of notable architecture, whose presence enhances the surroundings.
Regarding typological organization, the diversity of the existing building complex, allowed a distribution of dwellings with different scales and configurations – from single-storey apartments with access through common galleries to small duplex houses with direct access from the street.
From an environmental and economic point of view, solutions with a low ecological footprint and centralised network infrastructures were adopted to reduce energy costs and optimise resources.