House NX / ARX Portugal Arquitectos

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Cascais, Portugal
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House NX  / ARX Portugal Arquitectos - Image 7 of 35
© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

Text description provided by the architects. This house took a real long time to come through. In this interval of a 7 years total, the context changed radically. What was once an inclined land lot with a panoramic view over the sea, has become a strangled place amidst high buildings, sometimes up to 9-storeys, meanwhile built in the way, between the houses and the sea.

House NX  / ARX Portugal Arquitectos - Image 27 of 35
Floor Plan

This outcome was nonetheless predictable, given the available building-plans and the idyllic real-estate paintings, once again isolating the products they wish to sell in an exclusive relationship to the country or the sea. This time it was the sea.

House NX  / ARX Portugal Arquitectos - Image 5 of 35
© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

Knowing this, and despite the harsh nature of the starting ground, the house went looking for its inner self, getting ready for the worst-case scenario, still taking for granted the sea breeze and the walking distance to the beach.

House NX  / ARX Portugal Arquitectos - Image 35 of 35
Section

Totally defined in the allotment building license, the house grows into three floors, the lowest being both the garage and storage area.

House NX  / ARX Portugal Arquitectos - Image 4 of 35
© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

The compulsory perimeter distances of the lot (3, 5 and 6 metres), common to any allotment across the country, force the compaction of the volume, releasing all around a “stripe“ of land, usually residual and hardly usable.

House NX  / ARX Portugal Arquitectos - Image 2 of 35
© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

The designing process was much a (re)search for the different possibilities of the indoor-outdoor spatial relations (we assume this is very much why one builds a house in the first place). Outins were created, broadening the spectrum of possibilities, like the intervals between the body of the staircase and the rest of the house.

House NX  / ARX Portugal Arquitectos - Image 3 of 35
© Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

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Cite: "House NX / ARX Portugal Arquitectos" 19 Sep 2014. ArchDaily. Accessed . <https://www.archdaily.com/543923/house-nx-arx> ISSN 0719-8884

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