The existing house, a typical rural construction in local stone (a mixture of flaky schist and poor granite), kept its original exterior geometry, form and expression. Inside, the ruins of the house were cleared to create a double height space, which includes the communal living room, the dining area and a mezzanine for a small reading room suspended above the space. The bedrooms are laid out in an attached body, which extends horizontally northwards, slightly sunken and creating a feeling at once of comfort and privacy in their interior and a particular and uncommon scale outside. The interior area of the old house is structured in wood, its expression evoking the memory of the original construction. The new attached body, on the contrary, is completely built in white painted concrete, and accentuates its abstract intention due to the continuous interior finishing. The sequence of en-suite bedrooms creates a flat mass that extends over the plot, blind and walled to the east, and fully opening to the garden at sunset. The bedroom hallway is a recognisable (gallery with doors), conventional space from a typological perspective, although the immateriality of the finishing and the bright lighting at the tops makes it into an unusual space. A common window appears at the intersection of the volumes from different eras, projecting the spaces into a sunken garden patio and a walled-in outdoor living room, whose walls extend the building’s divisions and link the swimming pool tank to the house and the landscape. From a design perspective, the house was thought to create an atmosphere of leisure and relaxation, which its environment and scale reflect.
project:
house in venade
location:
venade, portugal
date:
2010-2014
building area:
338 m2
architecture:
nuno brandão costa
collaborators:
joanna katherine guimarães, filipa júlio, rita leite
structural engineer:
ana isabel vale (abprojectos)
hydraulic engineer:
ana isabel vale (abprojectos)
electrical engineer:
maria da luz santiago (rs associados)
mechanical engineer:
raul bessa (get)
photographs:
andré cepeda