Project Casa TB5 was born out of a need of the homeowner: to enjoy the forgotten spaces of the house, in particular the garden.

Our inspiration for redesigning the flat's spaces has been Arco Cego's own garden neighbourhood model, which introduced an innovative typology into Lisbon's urban fabric in 1935, by connecting architecture and the environment. We wanted to be faithful to the environment and give the flat the same model, replicating the harmony between architecture and environment, characteristic of the neighbourhood, and connecting the interior and exterior spaces of the house.

One of our main challenges has been to redesign the way of living in this house without altering the original distribution, the one from almost a century ago. This is because almost all the walls are load-bearing. And with two main objectives:

1. We wanted to turn the garden, which is not very accessible and forgotten, into a natural extension of the house. Thus, we have transformed two rooms adjoining the garden into the living room of the house.
2. We wanted to transform the lower floor, which was difficult to access (from a trap door in the old living room) and was used for storage, into a living space. To do this, we changed the access to the lower floor, which is now from the hallway, and improved the transit with a metal staircase. We were able to add a bedroom and an office to the dwelling.