Archaeological Excavation

First step in the building's basement for team 5 ! A smell of stagnant water and plenty of spider webs welcomed us... The aim of this day was to do the archaeological survey of the building's foundation. We went on site with archaeologist Susana Andreia to dig under the (rotten) wooden floor of the basement. 

Archaeologist Susana Andreia Preparing The Excavation

Our wish was to find some golden treasure or some bones from another century. So we dug for 5 cm taking care of every singular object (mainly pieces of iron) before to discovered...
 

Team 5 In Action

the foundation in granite !

Our Treasur !

This day was an occasion to discover how archaeologists work (define a place to dig, take measurements, excavate layer by layer, draw what we found and take measurement again) and to talk about the history of Porto.

4000 Atelier

Saturday the 25th was the 8th open working day in Arrebita's office for the 4000 Atelier event.

We took advantage of this event to have an office spring cleaning. Now if you visit the office you will find a clean blackboard with beautiful drawings, a new panel to let you write your impressions about the project, and a table with the partner material samples that we will be used in the building ! 

Spring Cleaning

So, architects, students, partners, kids from the neighbourhood or simply curious people, passed (through our open doors) to our nice office to discover the project or to keep up to date with the work we are doing here. Different presentations were given:

• A general presentation about Arrebita; the origin of the project, how it was born and how it works nowadays

• A presentation of the building (located to reboleira 42): its history, its actual condition, and the refurbishment planned

• A presentation of A!BOX: a modular box for different functions

Presentation of Arrebita

People stayed around after the presentation to have a look on the drawing, to ask some questions, or just to talk with us about our impressions and our experiences. A great time to exchange ideas ! 

After Meeting Exchange

We also had time to visit some other architecture ateliers and to discover the rich architecture community in Porto. This day finished by a dinner between people from Arrebita around the (supposedly) best Francesinha of Porto and then with a cocktail for all the participants of the 4000 Atelier. A way to know and to have contact with the other Ateliers of Porto!

Team 5 Taking Some Sun!

Meeting - working - meeting

Last week there was a succession of work sessions and of meetings with architects and engineers to review the building drawing and to speak about A!BOX.

Meeting Architects And Engineers

Since the first meeting we worked on A!BOX to make it more modular according to the new dimensions of the module and the technical space needed for pipes. We keep the concept but we try to improve it. 

A!BOX Presentation

Plenty of configurations have been tried to test the robustness of the concept and the flexibility of the design.

A!BOX Flexibility

The second meeting gave us the direction to check the building drawing and to detect the incoherencies between all different technical needs (described in some reports and drawing). We began checking each technical need (structure vs mechanical, acoustics thermal and fire partner’s recommendations vs building drawing, and so on) to be more confident with the project. Previous teams did amazing work to gather all the different information together and to translate it in drawing.

This work permits us to generate questions about some specific points in the building.

We also took advantage of the weekend to visit Coimbra, a nice town halfway between Porto and Lisboa. Here there is one of the oldest European university, and students maintain traditions as «Praxe» a black costume with tie and cape.

foto GLOBAL IMAGENS/ARQUIVO
Student Wearing Praxe

Sunshine makes the world tick!

On Friday morning we visited the studio of Victor, architect for Arrebita! to see the ongoing building works in his building to get a better understanding of the Portuguese construction. We also took with us some more catalogues to do the finishing touches to A!BOX.

Exploring the building

New steel floor beams over old timber ones

Friday we all; architects and engineers and us had dinner at Jose’s house. It was a great way to meet everyone outside the office and sample some of the boss's cooking and some Portuguese wine!  

We have been working on a presentation which we presented to the architects on Tuesday. Here are some working diagrams from our presentation.

Plan

Kitchen elevation 

Bathroom elevation 

The meeting went well and we treated the architects and engineers to some of our home baked chocolate cake after. 

We saw the Axa building in Aliados which was refurbished and now hosts some works from Portuguese artists.

Bom 25 de Abril! 

Spring has sprung here in Porto!

This week was a little less intense than previous.

Tuesday some of us went to a conference in which Jose was speaking at, about the social dimension of urban regeneration and Arrebita! at Santa Casa da Misericordia do Porto! Those of us who were not as confident with our Portuguese enjoyed the evening sun. We are continuing to work on the final new A!BOX designs and looking for the last few suppliers. Always getting closer to starting on site!

On Thursday Jose gave a presentation in French with the help of Madalena and Ruth from team 4 presenting Arrebita! to Centre Calouste Gulbenkian in Paris. Where we hope to show an image of Portugal that is positive and forward looking.

Ruth, Madalena and Jose at Centre Calouste Gulbenkian in Paris

While we in team 5 worked away in the studio finalising the material for the A!BOX.

The external finish of the A!Box lets you personalise as you want and the interior will be very shiny!  But we can’t reveal more information right now!

Monday we met with all the Arrebita! architects and showed them our input on the A!BOX and with their feedback we are getting ever closer to finishing the final design. Don’t worrying, we will show you as soon as we have it!

After some busy days trying to define the truly last version of the A!BOX (we hope you’ll love it) we had a cultural rest where we got the opportunity to listen to some local Fado singers.

Secret location !

Wednesday evening we joined a workshop about structural refurbishment by NCREP. For those who don’t speak Portuguese it was an opportunity to learn some Portuguese words and there were some nice pictures.

Ncrep conferences