Tomás Ribeiro is a flat in a building from the early 20th century. It is an income-producing building from 1913, intended for residential use. The building is left/right, with two dwellings per floor: four bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen and a complete bathroom. There are also two ventilation halls, one on each gable of the building. The entrance was at the beginning of the corridor, close to the private rooms, emphasising the lack of privacy. The private area of the house extended along the front of the flat and next to the ventilation lobby, while the social and service areas were at the back of the flat, typical of a building of its time.

The intervention in the space implied a reflection on the most significant changes in architectural housing models and in man's adaptation to space. Man now inhabits the home differently, which has been decisive in altering the spatial structure of the flat as the organising matrix of domestic space.

In this project, the kitchen division has undergone the most obvious change, no longer occupying the far end of the flat but moving closer to the entrance and, at the same time, to the living room.

There is an inversion between the kitchen and the bedrooms, which has allowed the bedrooms to enjoy the more private areas of the fireplace. The corridor emphasises the separation between the living areas of the house. The main elevation houses the living room, library, dining room and kitchen. To the rear are the bedrooms, bathrooms and a marquee that was once outside but is now an extension of the house.

The kitchen has been redesigned in the space adjacent to the living room and dining room, in an open relationship between the spaces, the kitchen is no longer a service space but an extension of the social life of the house. There is a visual connection between all the social spaces, rewarding its use as a single space, without, however, forgetting its total functional autonomy.

The former kitchen is now the bathroom that supports one of the bedrooms and also serves as a social I.S. that extends into the corridor and invites light to enter through the marquee space into the corridor.

The design of the ceilings has been restored. The friezes, voussoirs, doors, high skirting boards and wooden flooring have also been restored. What went in as new construction, went into the space with care, without touching the existing: in the bedrooms, the wardrobes don't touch the walls and ceilings, in the library, the bookcase appears as a singular element designed inside the perimeter of the friezes, in the kitchen, the worktop is suspended, it lives above the skirting board. The wooden floor was recovered and extended to part of the social I.S., interrupted by Lioz stone, a typical stone from the Lisbon region, which covers horizontal and vertical planes in the wet areas.

The diffused lighting, with the exception of the kitchen and bathrooms, was designed to complement the natural lighting that cuts across the two elevations, creating a calm and bright environment.