In Portugal, we speak of heritage rehabilitation since a long time but merely in classical terms as of heritage, monuments and listed buildings. Only in the second half of the 80's, emerged here in Portugal a wider concept of Rehabilitation, although in Europe it had already emerged around the late 60's and had been implemented with the Charter of Venice. I remember that took place, in 1985/86, the first meeting on buildings conservation and rehabilitation at LNEC and everything was still in the beginning. At this time, local technical offices started appearing as well as for instance heritage related to old urban centers; the first case may have been of Barredo, in Porto. Then, small towns like Evora and Miranda do Douro, that is, small clusters emerged as drivers. For Lisbon, it was already the mid-80's when technical offices appeared and gave a tremendous impulse. Nevertheless, the concepts are still very recent and on the other hand, of technical engineering and architecture training is also recent, if not almost non-existent....



Eng. João Appleton

in Engenharia e Vida, nº 23, April 2006

The rehabilitation of the building and its conversion into a hotel unit had to be carried out attending the fact that the timber floors had to be preserved and that original structural unit should be reconstructed.



Eng. João Appleton

in Pedra & Cal, nº 29,  Jan / Mar 2006