António Costa Lima Arquitectos has completed the rehabilitation of two old logistic warehouses built almost two centuries ago on Lisbon’s Cais da Rocha do Conde de Óbidos at the center of the riverbank docks, which, fortunately, continues to be in permanent activity and transformation. 

The project’s intervention consists of the rehabilitation of two vaulted historic buildings with very different characteristics now transformed into a sculptural series of new office spaces.

The first warehouse is built in solid brick walls suspending a roof made up of 4 metallic trusses. Inside there is also an iron mezzanine with a wood floor to be refurbished. 

The second warehouse is an ample space with a double height with a wide vaulted ceiling, built in a structure composed of 6 metallic arches of hyperbolar geometry. 

The space is divided into a set of 5/6 offices, served by a community cafeteria, meeting room, pantry, and sanitary facilities. 

The idea is to combine the two very different volumes into a balanced set. 

The solution consists of the length extension of the new canopy along the old warehouse brick facade and beyond, crossing the top of the second volume and becoming the new mezzanine of the large-vaulted warehouse. 

The main entrance gains depth and scale in accordance with the logistic origin. 

The raw treatment of the spaces remains faithful to the warehouse look, presenting the true nature of the materials (structure and other elements), without divergent finishes or ornaments. 

The impact on the surroundings is, in conjunction with other interventions nearby, undoubtedly indelible. 

The harbor administration, in concert with the City Hall, has seen the riverfront as a territory in need of deep rehabilitation in order to maximize its use and significance in the city. 

For this, it was interpreted that the coexistence of harbor activity with other types of service and office facilities would be important, in a strategically differentiated management along the riverfront. 

The refurbishment of these warehouses demonstrates this coexistence in a very visible way. It is a clear demonstration that the mix uses when well thought out, enriches the urban mesh and contributes to its regeneration.

It is well known how this area of the city has taken on a life of its own, expelling the degradation of marginal occupations for many years. 

The economic impact is evident and has brought about the recovery of public areas. 

After the work and with the recent occupation of its new tenants, the difference is quite evident. 

Even more, when the architectural solution extends the space from the dock to the interior of the vaulted warehouse, contraposing the public road dead end.

The intervention can serve as a successful model for the fact that it reinvented and revived an absolutely decadent structure and as the result was quickly welcomed with success by the real estate market and, more specifically, by the office rental market. 

Society has gained a new cultural awareness that faces and values the most unlikely rehabilitation works, from a perspective of environmental, ecological, and landscape sustainability. 

The project proposes, in the first place, the improvement and refurbishment of the building. 

However, with the option of breaking the public alley end, the building gains a new life: the continuity of the dock towards the interior promotes a more evident articulation of the two volumes, the main entrance is valued and the dead end is neutralized.

The commitment to revaluing the history of the building through its relationship with the present can be seen in the constructive solutions, in some cases innovative in the project, such as:

The use of raw steel in all the new metallic structural elements; the construction of new partition walls in acoustic ceramic brick in natural color, without stucco nor plaster; the construction of the five interior stairs in reinforced concrete; the installation of all infrastructures in sight, using cables, boxes, electrical equipment, and lighting devices, all in black and galvanized steel mats, also including rainwater drains, coated with zinc plated in natural color and the main exhaust, ventilation and HVAC pipes in galvanized pipe conduits (Spiro type) in sight; the replacement of window frames, which once again adopts transparent glass and iron in a design in tune with the original design, in a way, still visible in the neighboring building adjacent to West in raw iron frame system; and the replacement of the roof in the red metal plate by a corrugated metal plate in natural color.

All these options contribute to the enhancement of the pre-existing building and its surroundings.

Project: Cais da Rocha Renovation Architects: António Costa Lima Arquitectos  Lead Architect: António Costa Lima Design Team: Francisco Duarte Ferreira, André Pinto Da Cunha, Hugo Lopes Martins, Pavel Rosales, Bernardo Lino, and Luís Cardiga Santos Photographers: Francisco Nogueira

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