In Praça da República, Porto, the transformation of a former police headquarters reimagines a once-enclosed state building as part of the public realm. What was previously sealed off now opens to the city, creating new relationships between streets and squares, between movement and encounter. Through redefined flows — both car and pedestrian — the intervention blurs the boundary between the square and the block, establishing a renewed sense of spatial continuity.

The former complex gives way to a new typology: three residential buildings and a shared commercial space, envisioned as a food market or public hub. These are arranged to allow permeability, with passages and open zones that invite circulation and moments of pause. The rigid geometry of the original structure is replaced by a spatial logic rooted in openness and integration, resulting in a connected urban fabric.

More than a renovation, this is a repositioning of how space is occupied and shared. The project reaffirms Praça da República not only as a landmark, but as a lived space — an everyday anchor between the individual and the collective, the built and the lived.