United Lisbon International School project wins the “Lisbon Prize” at the World Architecture Festival

After being acknowledged with the Best Urban Adaptive Reuse Award at Portugal’s most prestigious Real Estate Show - SIL, United Lisbon International School is proud to announce that they have won the “Lisbon Prize” at the World Architecture Festival, an accolade for “the best building in the city” for renovation/ refurbishment/ regeneration of a building from the 1950s combining expertly form, function, purpose and sustainability.

At the award ceremony, in December, the jury praised the ULIS team for bringing a space to life with great architecture and for giving it a high purpose after the building had laid defunct for years.

United Lisbon International School opened in 2020 next to the Park of Nations with international English-language academic programs from Early Childhood (3 years old) till grade 12 (IB DP). It already has a student body of 300 students from 30+ different nationalities and an international teaching faculty to match.

Excelling in both function and form, United Lisbon is seated in a building which was previously a university building and had won an architectural prize in 1958 - when it was the Pasteur Laboratories - for its façade representing the Art Deco style of buildings in Lisbon from the 1950s. Architect Eduardo Capinha Lopes has achieved a fabulous result with the renovation project while preserving the original façade by modernist Architect Carlos Ramos.

The renovation project did not spare any costs or efforts in creating large, spacious and light-filled classrooms for students while focusing on the latest network system architecture, furniture and fittings. The award-winning façade has been maintained while gutting out the inside completely for various improvements and interior architectural features, such as the “open ceiling” and other features. It has 6,500 sqm (71,000 sqft) of fabulous outdoor spaces created for sport and outdoor play for the different age groups and will have a further 2,000 sqm (22,000 sqft) of sports-related facilities in the future.

The developers have created learning spaces and collaborative learning hubs, art studios, state-of-the-art science laboratories, a maker space with innovative equipment such as a 3D printer, Ozobots, indoor drones, Beebots and a laser cutter. The faculty is using all this hardware to build an advanced learning community which allows students to grow and develop in our ever changing world and be lifelong learners.

Chitra & Roman Stern commented: "It’s a great honour to be receiving these awards for all our teams’ hard work over these years to make these projects a reality! We are proud to have achieved these accolades especially as we have been through the toughest 24 months on various fronts because of the pandemic.

"The adaptive reuse of the United Lisbon International School has special significance to us as entrepreneurs and parents. We were able to help breathe new life into an unused building whose purpose had been for higher education and transform it into a modern building for education - a much needed international school for the city. We are now looking forward to re-purposing the rest of the Education Hub. Education is crucial in addressing many of the global problems we have, and we can only do this by being 'United'!"