Jardins Cristo Rei

The starting point is the U-shaped envelope fixed by the approved subdivision. Instead of simply filling the perimeter, the building uses the U to construct interiority: it turns its back on the surrounding roads and opens onto a central courtyard, which functions as the inhabited centre of the whole aggregating the two original lots into a single built piece. The regulatory geometry is worked, not overridden, until it becomes a spatial principle.

A second skin grows out of this move. It touches the main volume only at points and expands into balconies, cantilevered bodies, suspended gardens and exterior slabs, giving the façade real depth. On the street fronts, closed volumes extend the interior area of the dwellings, within the limits set by planning regulation; toward the courtyard, balconies reach three metres, producing generous private exteriors with a different character. Closed bodies and open balconies alternate irregularly across the elevations, so a repetitive construction system reads, from outside, as a differentiated one.

That relationship between repetition and variation runs through the whole building. Typical floors repeat the same plans, keeping service risers aligned and the structure simple; the ground floor and the roof break from this pattern to respond to what sits above and below them. The largest units take the corners, with multiple orientations and crossed views. Four penthouses occupy the roof. Ground-floor apartments extend into private gardens that bring life to the edges of the courtyard. Across the 180 dwellings, every unit has some form of private exterior space, whatever its size or level, a condition applied evenly rather than reserved for the largest apartments.

Circulation is held to two cores, which removes redundant corridors and returns that area to the dwellings and the shared spaces. The stairs are treated as something closer to an internal promenade, carrying movement from the upper floors down through the ground level and into the garden, so a technical decision about efficiency ends up shaping how the building is experienced. At ground level, shared rooms, a pool and planted areas sit directly against the courtyard, which acts as a kind of climate buffer for the whole scheme; shade and vegetation tempering the air, while the depth of the façade keeps direct sun off the glazing above.

Concrete is the dominant material. The building’s character comes from depth, shadow, planting and use, not from colour or surface effect. The structural grid works as construction logic as much as architectural decision: cores, columns and slabs are built in situ, while repeatable elements (bathroom pods, kitchens, guardrails, planters, façade components) are designed for off-site production.

Set within Olivais, where free space was always part of how the district worked, the building carries that logic forward through an inhabited façade, a garden at its centre, and a house that keeps extending past its own walls.