The Reviver Grammar: transforming the historic center of São Luís through social housing

This work explores the potential of Shape Grammars in generating solutions for the adaptive reuse of historic buildings. It proposes a transformation grammar for the Sobrado building, a typology present in the historic center of São Luís. The methodology proposes a framework for adapting buildings into multi-family apartments, considering spatial and structural requirements. The grammar aims to develop a formalism for repurposing historic buildings into social housing and considers the allocation of three types of apartments in the floor plan: studios, one-bedroom, and two-bedroom apartments. The adopted strategy for the distribution of internal spaces considers opening elements, such as windows and balconies, allowing to benefit from the natural daylighting characteristics of the buildings. This paper describes the grammar rules and its application to a case study building, aiming to demonstrate how the grammar supports different layout solutions for the same design space.