The existing plot is characterised by its large dimension, a heavily wooded, continuous slope down towards the river. Access is from a street with a handful of residential properties, which ends abruptly in a wood that blends in with the plot’s boundaries. The house offers a full view to the west, in a parallel layout with the terrain. On the eastern side, alongside the road, the house is enclosed by an opaque wall, which puts the service areas, laid out in a continuous line (kitchens, toilets and dressing room) out of sight from the road. The gap between the wall and the actual façade provides light to all these spaces. The lounge and the 3 bedrooms face the wood sequentially, as if in a realistic travelling motion. The house, of modest areas and basic finishes, expands itself thanks to the seamless sequence of spaces and the full transparency onto the landscape which extends the space continuously to the outside. At the top, to the south, the construction is cleared and forms a covered exterior space, achieved by the tension between the two slabs that make up the base and the roof of the building. Its language is defined by the combination of the two geometries of the horizontal raw concrete features, simultaneously parallel to each other and parallel to the natural slope of the land.
project:
house in crestuma
location:
crestuma,
vila nova de gaia,
portugal
date:
2007 - 2011
building area:
189 m2
architecture:
nuno brandão costa
collaborators:
ana rua cardoso,
filipa júlio,
marta reis
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:
arménio teixeira