The small Dodge House is located in the historical city centre of Lisbon, Portugal, in the popular neighbourhood of Mouraria.

Mouraria is an authentic Lisbon neighbourhood, known as the birthplace of Fado.

With a floor plan of less than 40m2, architects Leopold Banchini and Daniel Zamarbide decided to create three bedrooms on four superimposed floors.

Daniel Zamarbide is the founder of BUREAU, a practice based in Geneva and Lisbon that conducts a variety of research activities.

Zamarbide believes that “the project responds to a complexity of functional requirements that has turned the house into a “machine à habiter”, playing again, quite deliberately and strongly with the history of modernism and its inhabitable typologies.”

Low-cost construction techniques and simple materials were chosen to build an affordable dwelling.

Low-cost construction techniques and simple materials were chosen to build an affordable dwelling.

Locally sourced tiles and stones are used for the furniture, walls and floors. The rough cement blocks used for the shell meet custom made simple metal work.

“Within a rather small plot the Dodged house has privileged a strong section and a contemplative void, proposing a diversity of interior-exterior spaces that extend into a courtyard.”

 The plot has around 40 sqm ground floor, and 94 sqm in total.

The section in steps generates a generous full height living space in the small volume, in direct communication with all the floors.

 “Dodged House has preferred to keep her eyes closed and opaque façade and has bet on a less marketable feature, space, void, interior volume that refuses efficiency of land use”  

Towards the street, the pre-existing historical façade is left as found; a reminder of Lisbon’s fast changing city centre.

 “The city center’s reconstruction has opened the eyes to welcome an aggressive airbnb economy, a well-known European phenomenon, whose implications and consequence will inevitable pop up with time.”

“In the end it is quite a simple and readable project. Although it might be complex in its inscription into the urban fabric and historical context, it is nevertheless quite straightforward in its way to occupy space and distribute the program in a small plot.”