The Labyrinth
Councils, regulations, easements, terrain. What a property is allowed to become is decided long before what it should become, and that answer takes months to obtain. We start there.
We see what properties become.
Houses, offices, hotels and the places people choose to spend hours in. Different briefs, same starting point: what this property can become, and what it takes to get there.
- Property Licensing
- New Builds
- Home Renovations
- Execution Projets
- Site supervision
What the property is not telling you.
The Transformation
A plan can be corrected. A way of living has to be designed. Most of the value in a renovation is created in the decisions nobody sees on a floor plan: where light enters, how far things are from each other, what happens at eight in the morning.
The Renaissance
An old building already knows its own rhythm. The work is knowing what to remove without breaking it, and what a protected façade or an original structure will allow underneath.
Four territories. One point of contact.
Houses, offices, hotels and the places people choose to spend hours in
Residential
Homes designed around how you live, not around a style. Your hours, your habits, the things you will not give up. Whether it is a first home, a family house or a property you return to a few weeks a year.
Corporate
Workplaces are judged by who stays in them. Light, acoustics and circulation decide how a day feels long before the furniture does. We design offices around the work that actually happens in them.
Hospitality
Boutique hotels, branded concepts, destination spaces. Architecture that makes a guest feel something they cannot name, and come back without being asked.
Leisure & Wellness
Padel courts, gyms, spas, clubs. Places people choose to spend hours in, and return to without being asked twice. Light, acoustics and the way a body moves through the space decide that, long before the programme does.
Proof, not promise.
ECHILIBRIU
Barcarena, Oeiras, Portugal
GEFCO
Miraflores, Oeiras, Portugal
The four decisions that matter.
01
1. Design for the 10ᵗʰ year
Materials that look best on delivery day are rarely the ones that look best later. We specify for how a surface ages, how a joint behaves after two winters, how a colour reads once the furniture arrives. It costs more at the start and it is the only version that survives.
02
2. Test the property
What a plot or a building is allowed to become is a legal answer, not a design one, and it takes months to obtain. We get it first. Occasionally it tells a client not to buy, and that has been worth more to them than any drawing.
03
3. Choice ≠ Control
A client asked to approve three hundred choices will make most of them badly. We reduce the list to the ones that genuinely change how the space works, and take responsibility for the rest.
04
4. The sequence
A plan is a set of rooms. A day is a sequence: where you drop things, where light finds you, how far the kitchen is from the table when both hands are full. We design the sequence and the rooms follow.
Drawn here. Built here.
Drawing and building in the same house means a detail is never abandoned for lack of someone willing to do it. The cost is known while the plan is still being made, and the ambition survives to the last day on site.
THE BUILD SIDE
Architecture decides how a day feels.
Not on delivery day, when everything is new and nobody has lived there yet. On an ordinary Tuesday in the tenth year, when the house has been used, changed and used again, and still works. That is when the drawing is judged.
Light
Acoustics
Proportion
Material
Recorded, not written.
What our clients say when we are not in the room.
FAQs
What happens at the first meeting?
We look at the property, what you want from it, and whether it can give you that. It is not a presentation, and there is no fee for it. What you receive afterwards is a written scope and a fee proposal, and at that point there is enough information for you to decide, including whether to decide against.
Do I need an architect, or is an engineer enough?
An engineer resolves whether something stands. An architect decides what it should be, and is responsible for the licensing, the drawings, and the coordination of every specialty, engineers included. On any project where the answer matters beyond compliance, the two are not alternatives.
How long does an architecture project take?
Two timelines run in sequence, and only the first is ours. Design runs from the brief to a licensable set of drawings, and its length depends on the size of the property, its condition, and how many decisions change along the way. Licensing then depends on the council, and no studio can promise a date for that. What we commit to is a schedule agreed with you before the work starts, a submission date we hold to, a complete file that does not come back for missing documents, and a written update whenever the process moves.
Can a shop or office be converted into housing?
Rules on change of use and licensing have changed repeatedly since 2024, most recently in 2026. We confirm what applies to your property before anything is committed, and your lawyer confirms it with you.
Do you handle the licensing?
Yes. The full process sits on our side: the topographic and structural surveys, the drawings, the specialty engineering, the submission and every response the council asks for. You are not asked to visit a council office or to understand Portuguese planning law. You are asked to make decisions, and we tell you which ones and when.
Who builds the project?
We work with contractors selected for each project, and we can also take the work through to completion with BONDURANT, the construction company in our group, which means the people who drew it are the people who build it. Either way, site supervision stays with us, so there is one point of contact from the first sketch to handover.
Do you work outside Lisbon?
Our studio is in Lisbon and we work across the country, including projects in the Algarve. For work outside the Lisbon area we plan site visits in blocks and keep the same reporting rhythm, so distance changes the logistics and not the level of supervision.
Can you work with me if I live abroad?
Most of our clients do. The work is set up for it: a fixed cadence of video calls, decisions presented as a small number of clear options rather than open questions, and drawings and finishes documented so a choice can be made without standing in the room. Someone from the studio is on site so that you do not have to be. When you do visit, the meetings are planned around your dates.
Can you take on a project that already has drawings?
It depends on what stage the licensing is at and how much of the concept is worth keeping. We look at it before any fee is committed, and we say plainly whether the project is better continued or restarted.
How long does licensing take, and does it vary by council?
It does, and less than it used to. Since 2024 councils have had legal deadlines to respond, and silence counts as approval. From 1 October 2026 a further reform shortens those deadlines again and makes prior communication the standard route for most projects, with licensing reserved mainly for listed buildings, protection zones and land subdivision. Submissions are now made through a single national platform, so the paperwork no longer changes from one council to the next.
Is the work charged at 6% or 23% VAT?
The reduced rate applies to building work, never to design fees, which are always at the standard rate. Whether the works qualify depends on the property, its location and the type of intervention. We check before the proposal is issued, so the figures you see are the ones it will cost.
Will my project appear on your website?
Only with your written agreement. That covers photography, the address, your name and anything identifiable inside the house. Some of our best work will never be published, and that is a normal outcome. If you want the project kept private, it is written into the contract.