The last week of April

This week began with everybody working individually for the first time. Every member had the task to create his own concept for architectural/spatial and programmatic solutions of the building. Our “deadline” was on Wednesday, because we had arranged a meeting with Professora Teresa. Also, it was on the 25^th of April, the very significant holiday dedicated to the Carnation Revolution! The day when “nobody” works. :)

Tutoring with professora Teresa

 We designed more than 10 different possibilities, and on Wednesday presented those to Teresa. That meeting was extremely inspiring and after a long and productive discussion about our proposals, we chose the good things from all different projects that we will try to integrate into one solution. This meeting was probably the most important until now and was the moment of defining our designing concept!

We started to think about two main things that we wanted to do:

- ”to empty the box” (which is the building)

- ”to design a living box” (inside the existing building)

So, from the end of that meeting we started to design flexible boxes that can adapt to all kinds of apartments. We were thinking about various solutions like a small box for kitchen, bathroom or bedroom, but also about the different combinations of them integrated into just one. To make things more realistic and better to understand we decided to make a model (a big one, in scale 1:20) so we can try to put in all our new boxes!

On Friday, we met again with Susana Pacheco Barros, because she had so many things to tell about historic aspects of Porto, that the meeting we had the week before wasn’t enough and we asked her to arrange a new one. This time, she took us for a walk and told us a lot of amazing stories about Porto that we (and probably the most of the people who live here) didn’t know!

With the view of Porto

After the tour we continued to work with our box solutions and building the model… Here are some photos of the atmosphere from the office!

Filip

Cristina

Guido

Ingrid

Working

Eva

Next week, we will share with you also the drawings and models that we have made!

This third week!

This last week started with the great company of the teacher and architect Teresa Fonseca. Professora Teresa will be our tutor representing the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Oporto.

After we present some ideas of what we are doing, this meeting became like a melting pot where we discussed the rehabilitation philosophy and a future program. Besides that we also put on a table some good examples about what has been done in the city in the last decades. We talked about some political questions and how to turn the new program in a new way (even if small) of contaminating all neighbor and, who knows, all city center.

“A city who prostitutes herself to the others, may bring diseases”, a city lives from its own community and not for foreigners to see. In this way on one hand we have here a great opportunity to create something socially new,and on the other hand to draw a standard prototype for future rehabilitations in the historical center.

As architects “we have to feel the sensations of the street”, we have to see people's behaviors and observe everything around, before we can make any decision.

On the same day, 16^th April, we went to have a walk on the street of Reboleira with Catarina and Joana, both architecture students. We were there to know what is happening in situ, who are the people that still live or work there, which are the companies and associations that function there and some other historical facts about the buildings.  

On Tuesday we reviewed all our structural report in a meeting with NCREP, to prepare our public presentation the day after. On Wednesday, our first open working day has finally arrived (you can see more information in our related post). We finished the day with a nice dinner with all Arrebita team as well as many others partners that also came.

Seminar in Casa do Infante

Last Thursday we had also an important presentation with the architect Ren Ito. He talked about the Sabiamente Study Center project, an example as it is possible to rehabilitate a building with short resources.

With Ren Ito

Today, friday, we started the day with the historian Susana Pacheco Barros. She told us about some historical facts and about some curious characters that lived there as “Toninho da Ribeira”, and that can be a future inspiration for us. By the way, if you know any information that could help us please comment!

History lecture in the studio

Open working day presentation

We have had our first open working day and would like to share our presentation here on the blog. The goal for theese first two weeks was to get an overview of the history and social conditions of the building, the condition of the structure and damages, the spatial characteristics and to comment on possible programs.

The presentation you can find here, but we will also try to explain briefly our results and present our programatic discussion.If you have any comments or suggestions, let us know. We would appreciate your opinion.

Historic review

The historic information we have about the building is very limited. We know that the plot and street is old, but have no information about the current building structure from before the 1980's. We know that this building has housed a salt storage, a primary school, offices and a rowing club. We have a few drawings from the 80's, but they are very scarce.

Structural survey

We have tried to give a status report on the structure of the building. How is it made, and what is the current condition of the structure and materials.

The building has a traditional construction with loadbearing partitioning walls in stone and wooden floors and roof structure. The wooden parts are the most damaged and critical. condition varies from elements we have to replace to elements that just need new finishing.

Tests were made together with the engineers at NCREP, using the amongst others the resistograph and the hygrometer. We will finish this survey when the building is secured so we can also enter the basement and the roof.

Spatial survey

Our building is situated in a narrow street with limited light on ground level. The building has a rather simple footprint, 13 meters long and 5,5 meters wide, and today the stairs run along the partitioning wall. Our biggest challenge will be the daylight conditions. As the building has only one facade the light is poor in the inner parts of the house, but skylights provides the second floor with much better conditions.  

Programatic discussion

We still don’t have final decisions about the programmatic solutions, but we have some opinions and attitudes, and we would like to share it with you with a hope that you will get into the discussion. Feedback from you would be very helpful.

One thing that seems to be quite definitive at least at this stage of the project, is that the program is going to be divided by levels:

- ground floor + basement will have some programs for the community (whatever it means at this moment )

- 1st and 2nd floor - housing

Housing:

Regarding the housing, if we consider the city context and the dimensions of the historic buildings in that area, both of the upper floors have enough space to be independent living units – 63 square meters first, and 70 square meters second floor.

The main challenge for us will be to design a lightening solution for the apartments. We are already discussing about possible solutions like: adding a new floor or making a hole that can conduct light from roof to the 1st floor…

Why housing?

Because the spirit of Arrebita is about SOCIAL problems, about the people, about domestic people, about bringing them back here, in the hearth of the city where they belong… We are creating the ALTERNATIVE solution! For instance, the theme of tourism is very important for income of a city, but strategies already exist in that sphere. And we want to make something different, even if right now this project is not a solution for the entire problem.

People make a city; the city is people, not a museum where someone can just walk around and take a nice photos. A life is happening there, something realistic, and it should be the thing that Porto will be most proud of. Of its people.We want to bring people back, even if it means that maybe only two families or two young couples can be happy at the first moment. They will be, as we said, the example, but also the injection and the beginning of a great impulse that will spread…

Ground floor and basement:

Basement can be used as storage of a ground floor user, or can be divided between this user and the people who live on the upper floors.The lightening problem in the ground floor is not as big as on the 1st floor because of the different functions of these two spaces. This is not a space for living and it doesn’t necessary require natural light, so the electrical lightening systems can also be used…

Program in the ground floor…? Maybe it is something completely simple and supremely practical like a bakery, a pharmacy, or any kind of store that is supposed to be used every day from the people who live in that area… Or a few different activities that can work together… Maybe it will be the future Arrebita office like a proof and a motive for the neighborhood that something is really happening and changing, that somebody is now here, that the area they live in is not on the margin, that people actually want to come…Maybe even that youth has come, because youth is the future...

Conclusion and attitudes:

Our goal will be to design a building that is as adaptive, universal and flexible as possible!

We still don’t know who will use it, and that’s why our solution has to offer different ways of using it. For example, our primary goal will be to have a two separated living units on 1st and 2nd floor, but also, we will consider a possibility of a potential user who would like to merge these two floors into one apartment.

This project must not be observed as an example with unique problems and needs, like it is cut from time, spatial and social context. It should help us to found new principals of refurbishment. It has to be a good example, prototype and a model for all of the future projects...

1st Open Working Day!

Tomorrow we are having our first Open Working day. With the goal of learning from eachother, presenting what we've done so far and prepare for further work there will be several talks and presentation. We are now working intensively on our presentation. 

Come join us tomorrow!

The Second Week

The Easter is behind us, and many people were still on holiday, but not the Arrebitas! On Monday we had a fantastic presentation by two of NCREP's engineers - João Paulo Miranda Guedes and Tiago Ilharco about the traditional Porto housing typology. We have learned some basics of old building techniques and we have got a lot of useful information, which were the first steps in our understanding of all the damages that we can find in our pilot building.   

Workshop with João and Tiago

On Tuesday we had a full day workshop of BIM - Building Information Modeling by the professor Jorge Vaz from ESAP and Pedro Faria from our Arrebita family! This lecture about project management will help us to organize and consolidate our self during the teamwork in the most advanced way. 

BIM workshop with Pedro and Jorge

After the lecture we entered into the pilot building for the first time and made a short survey of it following the instructions that we got from NCREP.

In the evening we met the team of Arrebita engineers for the first time, so we showed to Rita, Daniel, Diogo and João some sketches and conclusions that we made about the building and discussed it a little bit…

The engineers visiting and supervising

We have to admit that it was a really long day but also that we learned so many new things, so - we are not complaining!:)   

  

Wednesday was a more relaxing day because we didn’t have any meetings, so we used it to make some plans about the structure of our Open working day presentation. This will be next wednesday, and we defined some main chapters and topics for the story about the building! You should all come and see!

And on wednesday Guido finally arrived from Italy! We have really been looking foreward to meet him. Welcome to our Arrebita!Family, Guido!

No further comment needed

Thursday was a very practical day for us, because we went to the building together with the NCREP engineers Tiago and Valter, who had brought their equipment for all necessary tests! So we rolled up our sleeves and got dirty! For all of us this was a first time of working onsite identifying damages, so everybody was really excited about it. This unique experience ended with many useful results about a condition of almost all of the elements in the building. 

On site with NCREP

Testing the beams with the resistograph

Hands on discovering damages

Valter and Tiago, looking for reinforcement

Guido checking the moist

In the evening, we had a first meeting with Arrebita architects – a six member team of girls: Magia, Rita, Pilar, Teresa, Mary and Filipa! We presented to them the historical and structural facts of the building that we found out so far, and we also discussed about our presentation on the Open working day…

Friday – we didn’t have any meetings so we spent the day preparing our presentation…  

Hard work