House of Remarks

The new structure enters the existing building on its own terms. A row of thin metal poles carries an I-beam running from front to back, interrupted where needed, and these cuts are exposed and celebrated. Painted bright red and blue, the new elements take deliberately disruptive positions, blocking doors, windows and passages, so the structure becomes visible and active.

Elsewhere the Portuguese design team made only fragmented interventions: little was demolished and a few walls were added. The street front gained a reflective top, and the back a new translucent layer that adds an enclosed balcony on each level, with a new mask of glass, yellow frames, mirror strips and marble.

The project is made of lines and surfaces, handled systematically but with excess. Rooms are reimagined with wooden skirtings, yellow frames and dense metal mesh, and each is taken apart into sides of white, light green and dark blue paint, with mirrors applied here and there.