The Porto architecture office wins 1st and 2nd place and also an honourable mention. Although the competition for affordable housing was composed of 4 lots whose proposals could be submitted independently, MASS Lab was the only team to submit proposals for all lots, distinguishing itself in the 4 lots for affordable housing.

With a gesture capable of contaminating the context, the proposal is not only reduced to the filling of the drawer with a volume, the proposal translated itself into an integrating approach to the urban fabric and the nearby surroundings. The jury highlighted "the investment and the audacity" of the intervention, since not only was the architectural object designed, but also "a seductive design proposal for the adjacent park and square" was presented. The jury distinguished the proposal from the others given the "remarkable cohesion demonstrated in its response to the competition program and which resulted in a building of very high architectural quality".

Located in a corner, between buildings, a park and a square, the main goal of the project was to clear the first floor so that there would be no barriers from an urban point of view, making the volumes under the building become part of the everyday life of all who pass by.

As the building is at the convergence of two slopes, it is important that it is formally available to react and make its surroundings react, moving in all its layers, joining all the pieces of the first floor, and breaking on the upper floors. The building twists and turns, lining the hill, and mimics the movement of its curves, denying a static condition. If inside the house we have our personal refuge, it is in the square that we seek to dynamize not only the experience of the building's residents but to promote a redesign of the surroundings by connecting the square to a new green park, through an unblocked first floor under the building, which opens to direct the flow of users.

Using prefabricated concrete panels covered with tiles, the façade module is successively mirrored, reflecting light differently along its outline, vibrating. The balconies, also pre-fab pieces, move in and out of the façade, changing in each of the apartments. The way the two materials, concrete and tile, reflect, and the changing colour of the podium, give the building the ability to sweeten itself and merge into the residents' activities. Not settling into monotony, the building demanded movement. The apartments contradict this desire for movement, and there is a rigidity of design, regulated by the relationship of emptiness, which leaves room for occupation, and where the rooms are not only delimited in the private but also mediate the collective experience.