camarim arquitetos restores lisbon home with decorative tile facade

house no. 11: a decorative facade for lisbon

Camarim Arquitetos has unveiled its latest project, House No. 11, the renovation of a historic building in Lisbon‘s Santa Isabel neighborhood. The residential project stands out for its shimmering and decorative facade, wrapped on all sides with verdant, green patterned tiles — a signature element of Portuguese architecture. The exterior material palette is a thoughtful blend of modern and traditional elements, featuring copper-coated zinc, dark-green wrought iron, engraved ceramic tiles, terracotta flat roof tiles, and both replicas and restored traditional ceramic tiles.

images © Nelson Garrido

camarim arquitetos Reimagines a Legacy

Camarim Arquitetos’ House No. 11 occupies a unique location between an industrial school and a cemetery. This peculiar setting presented an interesting challenge. The building’s prominence even attracted the Lisbon City Council, who considered demolishing it in 1942. Fortunately, it survived, standing as a testament to early 20th-century collective housing. The original structure featured an ornamental front facade, while the side and rear facades were more functional.

The new owners imagined a complete transformation, converting the building into a private residence. The architects embraced this vision and aimed to infuse the building with a sense of context, a quality perhaps absent from its original construction. The team’s approach focused on responding to the surrounding environment — the widened street, the gardened cemetery and private garden, and even the distant river. These responses are woven together in a continuous flow that defines the experience of the house, both inside and out.

Lisbon’s House No. 11 by Camarim Arquitectos features a decorative facade clad in traditional green tiles

Transformation Through Deconstruction and Reconstruction

To achieve this vision of its House No. 11, Camarim Arquitetos undertook a significant transformation. The building’s interior, along with the east and rear facades, were carefully deconstructed. Drawing inspiration from the preserved front facade, they embarked on a ‘compositional program’ that reshaped the building’s edges. This program involved a thoughtful process of ‘purifying or saturating, attenuating or amplifying’ the existing architecture and its decorative elements.

The result is a design that the architects describe as ‘chronological,’ reflecting the building’s history through its transformation. The rear facade, in contrast, offers a more literal expression of the interior layout, organized around a central atrium that dynamically changes heights throughout the space.

the historic building sits between a school and a cemetery, and narrowly escaped demolition in 1942
the client envisioned a complete transformation, while the architects aimed to add context and integrity
the design responds to the surrounding environment, including the street, cemetery, garden, and river