House in Quinta da Marinha I

Description

We started up from an unusual context: a land lot with huge potential where there was a recent house that we’ve decided to take down.  A bleak and dated image, excessively overdone and poorly inserted in the surroundings, dictated that somewhat radical decision.  In fact, any attempt to adapt it or recover it would prove to be an unsuccessful exercise of twisted financial outcome.

It is perhaps trivial to refer that this house’s design looks to address, clearly and accurately, the possibilities and limitations the land lot allows for.  And this is what this project is all about, a first reaction to a confused and confusing previous one. In this process, the house is to be designed as a synthesis of simple and quasi-mathematic gestures, determining the house’s spatial and shape structure.

A rectangular platform is shaped on the northern side of the lot where a clearing amidst the trees opens way to sunlight. A second platform of the same size hovers upon it, but this one is completely gardened, and between them the inhabitable space of the house is shaped.

A set of blade-like-pillars determined the spacing rhythm and its swinging reflects the energy emanating from that inner life.
A part of this system is subtracted and overlaid as a small upper floor for bedrooms, creating a generous patio below and clarifying the ground floor zoning: bedrooms are set to the east and social areas to the west.

Complementing this speech we came up with the design for a principle of permeability stratification versus closure. Meaning, the light gradients and view systems are shaped by vertical planes, opaque, translucent or transparent, as to respond to the inhabiting family’s need for privacy, openness or social dynamics.