MESTRE, VICTOR1; ALEIXO, SOFIA2

1) Founder architect of vmsa architects. PhD researcher at Coimbra University – CES. victor.mestre@mail.telepac.pt

2) Founder architect of vmsa architects. Teacher at Évora University – Architecture Department. PhD researcher at Oxford Brookes University, UK. sofia.aleixo@mail.telepac.pt

Within a heritage framework, the conservation, restoration and rehabilitation of 19th C. and early 20th C. traditional buildings requires a special consideration of the cultural, material and technological elements. In buildings from this period, architecture was under a process of industrialization, offering a place to rehearse the use of new techniques and new materials, enabling the observation of a certain hybridism in the resulting constructive systems. Therefore, as a special type, the preservation of mixed masonry buildings should follow best practices in conservation and restore of such buildings structures. However, as a structural component of walls, this system have been one of the main problems to be overcome in conservation, sometimes even being used as the reason for the demolition of cultural significant buildings.

Keywords: architectural conservation; historic buildings; traditional and eclectic architecture; mixed masonry; thickness