The 360° Experience

Hello! Team 7 is once again here to tell you everything that has been happening in Arrebita!Porto.

First things first: do you like the new design of our blog? We’ve made quite a few changes, so let us hear your feedback.

Under radiant sunny weather, the construction works on site progressed quite fast last week. The secondary metal structure for the roof was put in place; then, the workers started to fit in the thermal insulation panels on the west and north sides; the small skylight for the staircase was installed; and, finally, the first roof tiles were laid down. João Morgado, our media partner for photography, did not want to miss out on the construction progress and visited the site on Wednesday to document the works. 

There is still a lot to do, of course, but the work done during this past week already represents a huge step forward. We feel privileged to see a new part/element of the roof added before our eyes every single day.

The roof structure is made out of timber and metal profiles

A worker reparing a metal profile to be placed in the roof structure

The staircase skylight embedded in the thermal insulation

It's all about teamwork

The tiles by Telhas Cobert being put in place 

João Morgado doing his job

Also on Wednesday, Carlos Rebelo – from our new partner 3Decide – was on site to take a 360º view of the building. In the future, we will develop an interactive tool with 3Decide that will allow anyone to visualize the project and compare the “before” and “after” situation.  

Carlos Rebelo preparing the setting for the 360º view

In the meanwhile, back at the office, we had some national and international visitors, interested in learning more about Arrebita!Porto.

On Monday, we were visited by a group of architecture students from the University of East London. José Paixão made an informal presentation in the office before we took them to visit the building in Rua da Reboleira, divided in groups of five people. Team 7 has already conquered any fear of heights we might have had before this experience but the same cannot be said for our visitors. Everyone was excited to visit the site and climb up the ladder to the last floor; the problem for some was coming back down… Thankfully, Mr. Joaquim was there to help and everything turned out fine. We met the group again on Friday evening to have dinner after their project review.

The East London students waiting before visiting the building

Are YOU afraid of heights?

On Tuesday, we had a meeting with a committee set up by the President of Portugal to research social entrepreneurship in the country. The group included a personal adviser to the President, the Director of the North section of the Portuguese Association of Young Entrepreneurs (ANJE) and the Director of Eslider Portugal organization. The meeting was complemented with a visit to the site, where the committee fully appreciated the importance of the project.

José Paixão explaining Arrebita!Porto to the research committee

Finally, on Thursday morning, we had yet another visit by an international school of architecture – this time, École Supérieure d'Architecture Paris-Malaquais. Since there was no way that we could fit 90 students in our small office, we requested the auditorium at Casa do Infante to make a general presentation of the project. Afterwards, we escorted the group through a small tour of the historical centre of Porto, including the building in Rua da Reboleira and our own headquarters in Largo do Duque da Ribeira.

The group from Malaquais in front of our office

As you can see, our time here at Arrebita! has been what may be called a "360º experience": every week, we get to do so many different things, it's like taking part in an intensive drill on all aspects concerning a social initiative/architectural project.   

Unfortunately, we cannot help but feel that we are starting to approach the end of our stay: one of our main tasks for this week will be to review the applicants for Team 8. On the bright side, however, we still have one more month to go; and we expect to bring you some news on the A!box very soon. 

Until then, Arrebita!Porto.