ArchShowcase Sumit Singhal
Sumit Singhal loves modern architecture. He comes from a family of builders who have built more than 20 projects in the last ten years near Delhi in India. He has recently started writing about the architectural projects that catch his imagination. HDM House in Lisbon, Portugal by Sara Antunes Mário Ferreira Arquitectos (designed using AutoCAD and Revit)March 1st, 2012 by Sumit Singhal
Article source: Sara Antunes Mário Ferreira Arquitectos This house is located in a privileged area of Lisbon, at the southern end of a row of houses. This neighbourhood, built in the 1950’s by the state as social housing, in a “nationalistic” style, has a homogenous character, with the repetition of a type with slight variations, and cohesive public space, which promotes a strong sense of community that, is so hard to find in the more fragmented contemporary city.
The intervention, that rebuilt and extended the existing house, tried to maintain the integrity of the whole, reconstructing the street elevation, according to the existing one, but with a simplification of the architectural elements so as to permit a more natural transition to the extension, which assumes its contemporary condition. Inside, the house is totally new. It is divided into three levels, each with its particular atmosphere. In the basement, the introduction of a sunken patio connected to the parking access, creates new well illuminated areas to the south, which are quite unexpected, and technical spaces to the interior. The ground floor has an open organization, with spaces flowing around closed boxes. These wooden boxes divide the spaces and hide the staircases, a bathroom and storage space. They are covered in thin vertical wooden battens, creating a rhythm that permeates the different spaces and functions, giving them equal importance and a certain ambiguity. In this floor, the big living room opens itself to the garden and the swimming pool. This extension stands out from the white closed volume, as an open and light steel construction, protected from the sun and intimacy, by large moveable wooden screens. The top floor is organized around a wood-covered hall. From the east-facing rooms you access a large veranda over the garden. A small staircase, concealed in the dressing room of the master bedroom, communicates with a small attic. We looked for strong contrasts between materials, like the hard cement floors, or the cold white marble with the warm wooden finishes. The direct way in which the different materials touch or overlap, the will to reveal their intrinsic qualities and a strong character in the carpentry design, places this house near to certain modern architecture of the 1950/60’s, which we thought interesting to reconsider. |