Housing and Trade Complex Terracos de Braganca, Lisbon, Portugal, 1992–2004
The residential, service, and commercial complex Terracos de Braganca has risen from a site of approximately five thousand square meters, between the streets of Antonio Maria Cardoso and Alecrim, like a gap that needed to be filled, emerging from within a thoroughly unified precinct. The primary concern was to establish a dialogue with the context, to discover the fundamental reasons for defining the project in this location, and to arrive at a precise reading of the land, the topography, and the traces left behind by those who had lived here and given it meaning — traces that go back at least to the beginning of the fourteenth century, when the Ferdinand Wall was completed. Therefore, a complex comprising three buildings was constructed on the Alecrim Street lots, all sharing a setback of fifteen and a half meters from the street. Their programmatic definition is also shared: one or two lower floors, as the case may be, for the commercial section, and the upper floors for offices and residential use. Two residential buildings on Antonio Maria Cardoso Street were built above the ground, connected to the earth by widely spaced columns — a measure taken to preserve the remains of the Ferdinand Wall, which, as a historical monument, adds to the value of the site. This area will be used as a museum-like space, and through integration with the public areas of the residential complex, it will be accessible to all.
The structure of the buildings is reinforced concrete, consisting of columns and hollow precast concrete slabs. The roof surfaces are flat, waterproofed, thermally insulated, and covered with a layer of vegetation. On Alecrim Street, the exterior cladding up to the last office or commercial floor is of Portuguese limestone, and the remainder is of ceramic tiles. On Antonio Maria Cardoso Street, the buildings have a Portuguese limestone plinth up to the first residential floor. The rest of the wall surface is tiled. The windows and exterior doors are made of painted wood with double glazing, and feature interior wooden shutters as sunshades.