The Verdian is the restoration of a palacete on Rua das Janelas Verdes, in Lapa – the quiet, embassy-lined district on Lisbon’s western hill. The building stands opposite the National Museum of Ancient Art and beside the Chafariz das Janelas Verdes, the fountain that shares its name. Twelve residences sit within it: eight apartments inside the palace and four townhouses alongside, arranged around a private garden at the centre of the site.
The palacete has never been a monument. Built at the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a merchant family’s home, it became Escola Básica nº 18, a primary school that ran from 1911 until 2007, and later an artist’s studio. Years of vacancy followed. The building absorbed each of them.
“Restoring a historic and iconic building to the city of Lisbon is always a moment of great responsibility and, at the same time, of happiness… Rehabilitating, restoring, and building anew, in addition to the technical complexity, is a conceptual exercise that deserves the utmost care.”
A Name and a Building
ReTrend appointed Traficore with a name, a mark, and an intention. Saraiva + Associados had drawn a restoration of real ambition, and everything that would carry it to market was still to be built.
We started in Lisbon, beside the site itself: with ReTrend’s managing director on who the building was for, then Lapa, then an audit of what the rest of the market was claiming.
Always Lived In
Heritage conversions are usually sold one of two ways: as museum pieces, or as generic luxury behind a period façade. Neither described what had been drawn here.
We positioned The Verdian on continuity. Every occupancy had left something behind, and the residences read as the palacete’s next tenancy. The resident joins a sequence that began two hundred years ago.
Drawn from the Building
The mark became a system: lockups, a line emblem carrying its ornament across print and environment, and the rules governing each.
The palette is a material inventory. Estuque, cal, lioz, ferro, telha – stucco, limewash, limestone, iron and roof tile, named in Portuguese. The sixth is Janela Verde, the green the street was named for.
City, District, Building, Home
The material was written in English and Portuguese and structured to move inward: Lisbon, then Lapa, then the palacete, then the individual residence.
A buyer relocating to Portugal chooses a country and a neighbourhood before choosing a home. The content follows that order, which is why the brochure opens on the Tagus and the azulejos of Lapa and reaches floor plans last.
Before it Was Finished
We were appointed early, while the restoration was underway. The subject was Lapa: the Chafariz fountain, the azulejo façades, the gardens at Estrela, the museum next door, the streets running down to the Tagus. A buyer here is acquiring a district as much as a residence.
Inside, we directed the photography around the work itself: stone stairs stripped back to rubble, stucco under repair, iron off its fixings. A scheme built on continuity has to show what survived.
Credit: ReTrend LDA 2025
“Working with Traficore has brought more structure and consistency to how ReTrend presents itself. They understand the real estate market well and know how to translate that into marketing that connects with our audience. It’s been a valuable partnership for us.”