Leça da Palmeira, a seaside town near Porto, in Portugal. Built in the
1930s, its sober architectural language reflects the constructive and
stylistic options of the time, as visible in the rectilinear design of the
cornice and the stone masonry elements flanking the cast iron gate with
depurated decorative geometry. Having always served as a residence,
the house has stone walls finished with traditional mortar and painting,
painted wood framing, wooden slabs, pine flooring and ceramic tiles in
the roof. It endured some minor transformations and extensions, mainly
visible at the old rear façade.
While designing a home for a family of five, this project strived not only
for the restoration but also for an extension of the pre-existing building as
a way of achieving an area more suitable to the whole diversity of
activities needed and requested. After research was concluded, that
extension materialized in a geometrical zinc-lined volume resembling the
universal archetype of a house, extruded from the back façade and
widely into the garden. Working as a big living room, the whole area
aggregates spaces like the kitchen, office (second floor) or library
(second floor).
Renovating its internal layout, we looked for a sober approach regarding
materials and “skins” with bare spaces and concrete ground flooring
emphasizing wooden elements. We also aimed to achieve a wider spatial
fluidity, promoting a constant dialogue between openness and privacy,
shifting from luminous to more somber and intimate rooms. That is also
visible in the two-storey living room and its relation with the outside
garden, but also in the north part of the house where the integration of
atelier, bedrooms and office connects with a small patio and the
residence’s entrance. Hand in hand with the fluidity streching in the inner
dimension of the house, the light and scale design accentuates the
diversity of areas and spaces with different uses. Either more intimate
and private or more exposed and outside-oriented, these can reflect and
host the family member’s moods throughout the day.