Lisbon Stone Block / Alberto de Souza Oliveira

Architects: Alberto de Souza Oliveira
Location: Lisbon, Portugal
Collaborators: Inês Cordovil, Sílvia Fernandes, Sérgio Godinho, Ana Cravinho, Sofia Pinto Basto
Engineer: BETAR estudos e projectos de estabilidade lda.
Construtor: Ramos Catarino, S.A.
Project Year: 2011
Project Area: 5,672 sqm
Photographs: Nelson Garrido

Lisbon’s Stone Block is located in the corner of two major streets and that position is somehow special in the relation that the building it-self creates with the “urban net”.

The idea/concept of the building is based in a “mutant facade”: a skin in stone, almost metamorphoses and movable.
We can say that the building is an urban sculpture that transmits several images accordingly to its use: By night the light radiates from the apartments and by day the building is perforated by it in a different way – the natural light passes through the openings in the movable panels, allowing the control of light in the interior of each apartment.

The apartments present a plan where the living room centres also a will to move and transform – through opening or closing the panels in the façade it’s possible to create different spaces in each apartment.