First Works . Fanqueiros House I Casca Atelier

As an urban fact, Baixa Pombalina is one of the most recognisable in the Portuguese collective imagination. From its role as the city's commercial centre, to the fire that destroyed part of Chiado in the 1980s or the tourist development it has undergone in recent years, its historical and identity importance is undeniable.

Although it tends to be read as an urban plan with a rational and even austere character, Baixa is not only defined as a whole, but also by the typology of the buildings that make it up. The well-known Pombaline cage, the anti-seismic wooden structure that forms the construction of these buildings, has a clear influence on the design and spatial organisation of each ‘flat’, creating a homogeneous plan for an entire area of the city.

With the interest generated in this area in recent years, the prevalence of this typological character has been called into question by interventions that maintain little more than the facades, disregarding both the structure and the original typology. Casca's project for a single-family dwelling on the roof floor of a Pombaline building in Rua dos Fanqueiros is therefore particularly relevant.

The proposal for Casa Fanqueiros I, completed in 2014, is uniquely based on the original structure, with the architects recognising ‘that it was fundamentally right’. The structure thus serves as the basis for a project that dialogues with the pre-existence rather than contradicting it, in a synthetic and unobtrusive approach that is nonetheless contemporary.

There is a clear intention to maintain not only the Pombaline structure as a typology, but also its atmosphere, which makes the whole intervention respectful of the time of that pre-existence in multiple senses.

As far as the design of a ‘new’ floor plan is concerned, the project is surgical. The architects removed a single wall and opened up new passages in non-structural walls. They visually maintain the original matrix - a structure of wooden beams and roof braces - which reads like the skeleton of the house from which ‘fat’ has been removed. Thus, spatial optimisation is allowed, in a logic of open circulation between the various spaces, without compromising the unity of each one.

In this way, the house opens up around a core that separates the private areas from those for more common use, with the bedrooms and bathrooms being the only clearly enclosed rooms. Throughout the rest of the house there is a spatial continuity, as if there is a fusion between the logic of the Pombaline plan and an open space.

The same sense of reuse is given to various original elements that were removed in the course of the work and whose replacement would have compromised them structurally. This is the case with several doors, which, due to the rise in floor level, had to be cut out in order to return to their original position. These are then included in the central box as part of the wall cladding, simultaneously giving it a new use and giving the space a clear sense of continuity with the original. The same logic is applied to stone slabs, wooden elements and the original tiles, which have been repositioned around the kitchen window.

On the walls, new plasterwork adapted to modern techniques was applied and elements of pine plywood were cut out, maintaining the original materiality of the wood. This approach harks back to the standardisation philosophy of the Pombaline period, which facilitated the efficient reconstruction of the city.

All images © Fernando Guerra | FG+SG