D. Dinis Secondary School, located in the parish of Marvila in the east of Lisbon, was opened in 1972. It was built in accordance with the standardised secondary school study carried out in 1968 by the architect Maria do Carmo Matos (JCETS-MOP), marking a turning point in Portuguese school architecture.
The pavilion-based solution adopted, with a capacity for 900 students, incorporated a singly-storey pavilion housing the school administration and management spaces, library, staff room, students’ room, canteen and snack bar (A1); three two-storey pavilions for teaching (A2, A3 and A5); one two-storey pavilion with a patio layout for science (laboratories) and visual arts (visual education and drawing rooms) (A4); and a sports/gymnastics pavilion.
The modernisation intervention consisted of the correction of construction problems, an improvement in the conditions of environmental comfort, safety and accessibility and remodelling of the exterior spaces, and the reorganisation and expansion of the teaching and non-teaching spaces. A new structure was built that links the various pavilions and also houses fundamental programmatic spaces in a position of maximum centrality, defining a course – or learning street – that connects the library, multipurpose room (equipped with telescopic seating for 217 persons), the staff work and break rooms, the class tutors’ room and study rooms for students.
The administrative services and secretariat remained in pavilion A1, with its own entrance from outside, as did the students’ room together with the canteen and kitchen, snack bar, convenience store and students’ association. Pavilions A2 and A3 retained their original typology, containing classrooms and toilets on the ground floors. Pavilion A4 now houses the nucleus of arts classrooms on the ground floor and the laboratories for biology, physics and chemistry on the upper floor, supported by preparation spaces and classrooms. Pavilion A5 houses the technologies nucleus with ICT rooms and multimedia workshops. In the sports/gym pavilion the support spaces were extended and the environmental comfort conditions were improved.
The main entrance to the school was also moved northwards. A new school gate together with a new transormer post and an area for storing waste containers were also erected.