We are an architecture team based in Lisbon, dedicated to residential, hospitality, educational and cultural buildings. Our experience comprises a wide scope of work, from urban design to buildind rehabilitation, from landscape to interior design. The office’s work relies on a continuous joint reflection of diverse technicians and authors, who assure in all the stages of each project, a wide, plural and coordinated vision.
Our aim is to develop outstanding projects, grounded on the site and its past, but inspired by creative ideas for a sustainable and greater future.
Architecture is our expertise secured by a rich and diverse background of our partners, from small houses to public buildings, from meticulous details to coordination of multi-disciplinary master plans.
People and society are at the centre of our studies, always with the ambition of making life better, being it in education, culture, health, residential, services, retail, transport, leisure, or hospitality sectors.
Bureaucracy exists and we work with it, providing advice and guidance based on knowledge of the legal procedures and taking reliable steps.
Projects: we like to take them seriously from the beginning, working closer with competent and reliable specialists in a wide sort of areas.
Fun is an extra but is important.
Architecture
The office’s work is founded on the conviction that architecture has a direct influence on the quality of our lives. Regardless of the dimension or scope of the project, in a house or in a urban plan, we search in every moment for the right answer to each of the questions we face, developing specific solutions to specific problems, based on a careful understanding of contexts and a creation of a broad and integrated vision.
Engineering
We work with engineering teams as a part of the design team, combining diverse fields of knowledge and experience to develop fully integrated and sustainable design solutions.
We keep solid partnerships with key engineering firms, with whom we develop a permanently coordinated work, thanks to the applied project management technologies.
Interiors
We believe architecture should provide a unique experience of use, of each space or a sequence of them. The light, materials and textures, the colour or the furniture are coordinated as part of a whole, converging to create a coherent image and that provides qualified experiences.
Design and Context
Every single detail is important. We create whatever is needed to fulfil the necessities of each project. Our goal is to design for living, providing comfort and sustainability, responding to the context.
Urban and Landscape Design
We apply a holistic approach in the study of cities, from the physiology of the territories where they were founded, their history and transformations, exploring programs and measuring their impacts.
Analysing, synthesizing and systematizing the historical and present city, we open up the way to reflect on the city and communities of the future.
Follow-up
The first step of the design process is to help clients evaluate and identify their needs.
From strategic planning or the elaboration of a program, to a detailed spatial analysis, our consultancy aims to develop the most efficient solutions, both financially and in quality.
The process is extended to the post-occupation stage, to help the inhabitants to enjoy the full potential of their new building. This follow-up allows us to reflect and evaluate the results of each project.
Project Management
We work to provide an integrated service, from design to construction, with legal and technical support, until the production is finish and its delivered to the client.
In all the process we rely on technicians working closely to the design team, providing a permanent assessment, monitoring the project, its budget and therefore its viability throughout its execution.
The final goal is to produce a project that optimizes the budget and the proposed levels of quality, adding value to the investment.
Prizes and recognitions
Machado Costa’s projects and buildings have been broadcasted at several major international exhibitions, as the Venice Biennalle or the Ibero-American Architecture and Urbanism International Exhibition. Their work had been presented in important institutions, as the London’s Architectural Association, the John Hartell Gallery in NY, or the Biojmans van Beuningen Museum, in Rotterdam.
The work produced by them, individually or collectively, is international recognized, including several nominations for the European Union Architecture Awards – Mies van der Rohe Prize, the Secil Prize or the FAD Award. Recently, Pedro was distinguished with the AICA Prize for Architecture, by the International Board of Art Critics.
Pedro Machado Costa
Pedro Machado Costa [Lourenço Marques, 1972] graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto [1996] and holds a Master’s degree from the Faculty of Architecture of the Technical University of Lisbon [2004]. His academic education also included studies at Bouwkunde – Delft University of Technology and the École d’Architecture Paris-Conflans.
He collaborated with Manuel Vicente in Macau and Lisbon [1994–1996], and with Manuel Graça Dias and Egas José Vieira [1996–1997]. In 1997, he founded a.s – atelier de santos, where he was responsible for the design and coordination of several public projects until the practice closed in 2014. Since then, he has developed projects independently or in association with other architects, including Luís Ferreira Neto and Ingrid Murer.
He was a Visiting Professor at ESAyT – Escuela Superior de Arquitectura y Tecnología [Madrid] between 2010 and 2013, and taught at the Department of Architecture of ISCTE-IUL [Lisbon] between 2013 and 2014. He was Director of PARQ – Department of Architecture and Landscape at Escola Universitária Vasco da Gama [Coimbra] between 2010 and 2012, where he also taught from 2008 to 2012.
He regularly contributes to architecture and urban culture magazines and books. His research focuses on Architecture, Landscape and Architectural Criticism, and he has been an associate member of Dinâmia’CET-IUL – Centre for Socioeconomic and Territorial Studies since 2013.
His work has been widely presented through lectures and publications in countries including Japan, South Korea, the United States, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, Germany, Argentina, Chile and France, among others.
He has been invited to participate in several international architecture exhibitions, including the Venice Architecture Biennale and the Ibero-American Biennial of Architecture and Urbanism. His work has been exhibited at the Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, the Hartell Gallery [Ithaca, NY], the Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum [Rotterdam] and the Architectural Association [London], among other institutions.
His work has received several distinctions, including nominations for the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award in 2004 and 2017, and for the Secil Architecture Prize in 2008. He was a finalist for the FAD Awards and won the Premi Arquitectura dels Socis d’Arquinfad in 2007.
In 2017, he was awarded the AICA Architecture Prize by the International Association of Art Critics.