Lisbon Warehouse Facade Hides Three New Homes of Brick and Weathered Steel
A Portuguese architecture studio has completed a block of three homes in Lisbon, tucked behind the retained facade of an old warehouse close to the northern bank of the Tagus river. António Costa Lima Arquitectos, a multidisciplinary studio based in the Portuguese capital, designed the project — called Praia do Bom Sucesso — to evoke the industrial buildings that once dominated the area. The block sits on Rua da Praia do Bom Sucesso, a street that reached its peak as a summer resort at the end of the nineteenth century before losing its seasonal character to other beaches further upstream along the Tagus (António Costa Lima Arquitectos).
The studio divided the block into two long gabled volumes on either side of a row of three courtyards, each courtyard serving one of the three houses. The courtyards are wrapped by glazing and perforated brickwork that pulls daylight deep into each home, forming private patios and entrance areas at ground level, with garages opposite. Two en-suite bedrooms occupy the enclosed northern sides of the houses. Weathered steel staircases lead up to the first floors, where corridors lined by perforated brick walls connect living, dining and kitchen areas (Dezeen).
The building's character shifts sharply depending on which side you approach. The preserved north facade, which faces the street, is hard and opaque — the retained wall of the old warehouse. The south side, by contrast, opens up with balconies and full-height glazing, flooding the interiors with light. The structure throughout has an industrial feeling of exposed brickwork and weathered steel, a material palette that sits comfortably with the site's early-twentieth-century industrial past.
The studio publishes the project as a portfolio item on its official website, where it notes the street's history as a once-popular riverside destination. António Costa Lima Arquitectos works across residential, educational, corporate and industrial architecture (designboom).
What gives Praia do Bom Sucesso its particular charge is the tension between old and new. A passer-by on the street sees a warehouse facade, solid and familiar. Step inside, through the courtyards, and the building flips — glass, light, and a perforated brick lattice doing the work that solid walls usually do. The warehouse is not just preserved; it is used as a mask, with the living spaces arranged to turn their backs on the street and their faces toward the river. For a city that has spent the past two decades converting industrial waterfronts at speed, this project offers a quieter version of that instinct — one that keeps the shell and rebuilds the life inside it.
