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Architects: oitoo
- Area: 221 m²
- Year: 2023
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Photographs:Attílio Fiumarella
Text description provided by the architects. Following the completion of the ground floor house, and the broader research, reground Porto, oitoo was commissioned with yet another opportunity to reuse and repurpose an unused ground floor space.
We found a commercial space that has stayed vacant since it was originally built in 1996. After a quarter of a century, it became abundantly evident that other uses should be considered.
As it is often the case in similar contexts, these spaces present unique features that allow them to become generous, domestic spaces featuring relatively large areas, open spatial layouts, high ceilings, and a backyard asking to become something else.
oitoo adapted this ground floor to a residential function, activating the relatively secluded street and restituting the permeability in the backyard, with a new garden. All this is in close vicinity to one of Porto's cultural landmarks - Serralves Park and Museum.
This project demanded a thorough reflection upon specific themes of interior design: mediating between the public and private realm, designing and organizing the internal domestic space; considering natural and artificial lighting needs in an exceptionally deep plot; considering finishes and materiality; considering the opportunities that high ceilings present to define an internal “topography”; rethinking the use of the backyard, from a logistic area to an effective expansions of the inside realm – an “outside room”, open towards the sky.
