The Santos-o-Novo Monastery was build up at the beginning of the seventeenth century in Santo António valley, a peripheral rural area of Lisbon. The architectural proposal intends to an urban redevelopment of the entire area surrounding the monastery and a degraded palace, of the same century, regulating pathways and accessibility in a very uneven topography and fixing the relationship of large buildings with the surroundings. Through the creation of two new buildings, which are related, and the conversion of the palace, its new uses are essential factors for the revitalization of this new centrality.
The transformation of an empty area adjacent to the monastery, has resulted in a volume built half-buried that houses the Interpretive Center of the Holy Martyrs of Lisbon. The solution adopted, allows to create a better balance in the relations of scale with the surroundings of the monastery, enhancing the monumental complex. The theme of the permanent exhibition has the particularity of being a founding legend of the city, the Holy Martyrs of Lisbon, to which the monastery is dedicated to them. This involvement led to the creation of paths, ascending ramps, in connivance with the legend itself. The main exhibition space, a perfect dome semi-salient on the rooftop, identifies an ideal space for contemplation, meditation and exaltation.
The creation of the new Student Residence for ISCTE-IUL adjacent to the palace gives the possibility of increasing young population in the area which is vital to its animation, enlivenment and attractiveness. To reconcile this duality, the solution went through the recovery and conservation of the palace, purging it of exterior and interior auxiliary constructions. To the interior of the palace garden, is developed the facade of the new corps of the residence that houses most of the rooms, all opened to the Tagus River. The configuration of the new corps frames the palace and, by manipulating the number of floors of each corp the construction can be ordered and outer spaces that are distributed by several levels.
A new urban space will become the main entrance of the residence, giving relevance to the facade of the original corp of the palace, which in this new small square goes to confront directly with the side facade of the church of the monastery, in a new scale ratio. Briefly, in the palace are located the public and multipurpose spaces, main entrance and reception, lounge and study areas, while in the new construction are located the students bedrooms and technical areas.