This project unfolds as a small architectural exercise: an intervention within an early 20th century building, where there is a substitution of two obsolete and heavily deteriorated elevators for a new lift.
Beyond the immediate functional upgrade, the project explores the latent potential of contemporary technical solutions: a new, more generous lift cabin now reaches the sixth floor without altering the existing skylight. This is made possible through a completely independent structure, designed to host a purely mechanical system.
To optimize the installation, the design reinterprets the geometry of the existing staircase. By working within the stairwell, the space required for the pump is reduced, and the motor is relocated to the sixth floor. A reinforced concrete foundation anchors the new framework within the original shaft, while a metal structure extends vertically, supporting the lift mechanism and allowing full-height accessibility.
Using the elevator’s structural logic, while preserving the original guardrails and handrails, a new skin was introduced: 1.5mm thick treated iron panels combined with 5mm polycarbonate sheets. A continuous strip of translucent polycarbonate now lines all the stair flights, creating cross-visibility between levels and allowing daylight to diffuse throughout the building.
The new volume exposes what is usually concealed. Its skin, made of ochre transparent plexiglass and detailed with raw metal plates, reveals the brutal nature of the mechanism it contains. A pragmatic insertion that, in its clarity, becomes an expression of architecture itself.
The new volume exposes what is usually concealed. Its skin reveals the inner logic of the machine, brutal, pragmatic, and precise. In this clarity, the intervention becomes a statement of architecture itself.
Lisbon, Portugal | Private | Built | Housing | 91 m2 | Photography by Bárbara Monteiro