In an early seventies building, we found an uncharacterized apartment, too compartmentalized and with little natural light. The challenge was to bring a contemporary language ensuring the comfort of modern living under controlled costs. Severely constrained by the available space, the highly detailed works of dismantling partition walls and build new space guides brought a new distribution and a smoother transition between rooms. Finding structural walls made of stone and the impossibility of their removal brought a new problem. Keeping the stone visible turned the problem into a solution, marking the character of the space as well as its own uniqueness and exclusivity. Exploring the idea of evolutionary and adaptable architecture, incorporating flexibility into planning and designing, brought in concepts suited to the different requirements of the space appropriation, allowing the use of a hallway as an office or turn a reading area into a guest room. The extreme care of working the light as a shaping element of the space combined with the selection of natural claddings highlights the stone, assuring the elegance and distinction of the different rooms, making the experience of this space absolutely distinctive.
On a return to the origins, the challenge of a tricky complex site waits for us, these that lead to the best projects. A small village full of irregularity, with a field of view marked by miscellaneous rooftops.
In the distance the impressiveness of the city tower contrasts with the featureless construction on the side.
Located on the north-center of Portugal, the house was meant to combine the rural and the urban lifestyle. The lot is surrounded by different types of constructions, consequence of the informal settlements, characteristics of most Portuguese cities neighbourhoods.
The house evolves having the planimetry of the city (Guarda-Portugal) as a background. The place, in peripheral context, is profoundly different from the center because of the recently urbanization, the natural territory was depersonalized by the topographic changes caused by that. The existing public space is builded without an organisation that matches the topography of the place, forcing an artificial and uncharacterized lotting, Nowadays, there are different morphologies and typologies of construction.
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