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Vaults

Apparatus Architects

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Innovation
Functionality
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Total
JURY VOTES
Small Office
6.82
6.27
6.91
6.27
6.57
Bill Bouchey
Bill Bouchey Principal - Director of Design Interiors at HOK
The dialogue between the scale of t...
7
7
7
7
7
Tiffany Yao
Tiffany Yao Regional Workplace Manager at Newmark
Incredible attention to details. Th...
7
7
7
7
7
Anika Hülser
Anika Hülser Head of Interior Architecture at HPP Architekten GmbH
6
5
7
7
6.25
Kate Shepherd
Kate Shepherd Cofounder & Strategic Director at The Future Collective
7
6
8
7
7
Martin Mostböck
Martin Mostböck Founder and creative director at AID at Martin Mostböck. AID - ArchitectureInteriorsDesign
8
7
7
7
7.25
Aezad Muzaffar Alam
Aezad Muzaffar Alam Co-Founder and Design Director at REFORM Studio
7
6
7
6
6.5
Tola Ojuolape
Tola Ojuolape Senior Project Designer at Selina
7
6
6
4
5.75
Joe Cheng
Joe Cheng Chairman at CCD Cheng Chung Design
clever design of the ceiling to min...
8
7
7
6
7
Christina Wissing Oppermann
Christina Wissing Oppermann Commercial Director at Brandt Collective
6
6
5
5
5.5
Penny Craswell
Penny Craswell Writer at The Design Writer
6
6
8
7
6.75
Zhang Jiliang
Zhang Jiliang Vice President at Greentown China Holdings
6
6
7
6
6.25
Client
Apparatus Architects
Floor area
63 ㎡
Completion
2019

The studio is a small storefront within an 18th CE historical Palace located in central Lisbon. Through time, the palace suffered several transformations, such as the conversion of the entrance halls into mixed-used commercial and office spaces facing the street. The first impact of the space was the lack of history and the very low ceiling, below the height of the windows reducing the incidence of natural light – a lower level in relation to the street where the high windows would frame the different parts of the ceiling. Something was wrong, we had to strip down the space and leave it bare. Then, from the original wooden beams from the mid 18th CE to the steel beams placed in a recent renovation, it became clear that we could read the history of this building through this uncovered ceiling. While exploring the references and Archetypes found in the palace, we were drawn to the traditional Portuguese brick vaulted ceilings behind a now enclosed space, which used to be a corridor from the patio leading to the horse stables. This Archetype would be our response to the issues we were facing and the history we wanted to tell. Through typological transformations, we manipulated the regular vaults according to specifics parameters of positioning and scale: measurement, identification, locations of the beams and the positions of doors and windows, all to ensure a maximum incidence of light in the studio. However, the construction process was paramount that it involved local materials and craftsmanship; thus the final stage of our conception became the beginning of a conversation, a journey, with the incredible carpenters with skills passed from generations, that made this a real, semi digital, but entirely manual process.