BAR OF ACADÉMICO F.C.

Académico F. C. is a sports club from the city of Porto which, since 1927, has had its headquarters in the old Palacete do Lima, a building built in the mid-19th century in Rua de Costa Cabral. This two-storey building retains its original features on the main floor, although it is in need of major maintenance and restoration work. On the first floor, where the club bar is located, the state of disrepair was accentuated by intense use, lack of maintenance and wear and tear on the coverings, making it essential to remodel the space.

With limited financial resources, a less intrusive solution was proposed, without compromising future, more structural interventions. The organization of the bar was changed, moving the counter and service area to a more private place, keeping the main room and creating a new one, ensuring a good relationship with the outside and natural light.

Constructively, a new floor and a system of panels were applied to the walls, covering the various existing coverings, postponing the necessary in-depth refurbishment work. During the work, an old hydraulic mosaic in good condition was discovered, but with some gaps. Making new mosaics to fill these gaps proved unfeasible due to the incompatibility of the existing molds and the high costs of producing such a small quantity. It was decided to keep the original flooring and fill in the gaps with yellow cement mortar.

Inside, the walls were covered with natural wood panels with engravings representing the club's winning sports. These panels incorporate artificial lighting, creating a uniform light in the space. The ceilings were restored, keeping the stucco of the main room and showing, in one of the rooms, the traces of a fire that occurred in 1982.

Rehabilitation work on existing buildings has variants that a "from scratch" project doesn't need to foresee, making the interventions denser as the successive layers reveal the building's history.

At Palacete do Lima, each layer is not only material, but also a testimony to the successive transformations that the building and the club have undergone.