São Bento House
Located in the São Bento neighborhood of Lisbon, Arkstudio designed this short term rental with mixes of traditional Portuguese construction and the aesthetics of a contemporary home.
The architectural intervention was founded in a pragmatic strategy, the goal was to improve the habitably of the apartment trough the improvement of the natural light and air quality, therefore the need to reorganize the inner space became a priority and the way of using the space was inverted.
The bedroom, once an inside room- with no windows- was transformed into an open kitchenette, in direct dialogue with the living room, and the old kitchen, which privileged the morning light and the quiet of the back of the building became the bedroom, the other spaces, and architectural elements were renovated maintaining the original character.
In this way, it was possible to give a new life to the interior room, privileging the common area and, at the same time, having a more generous and more private area for the apartment’s master bedroom.
For the interior design and decoration proposal of this short-term rental apartment, the main goal was to obtain a contemporary and minimalist atmosphere, always with programmatic and decorative coherence. Comfort and durability to use were establishing lines for furniture and materials choices, due to the proposed program. The interior design project maintained the strategy of the architectural design, emphasising the eclectic nature of the intervention- uses neutral tones in the constructed elements, light pastel colours in the bigger pieces of furniture, and coloured elements for the decorative pieces.
Design: Arkstudio
Design Team: Margarida Matias
Photography: Rodrigo Cardoso
