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Architects: Manuel Tojal Architects
- Area: 190 m²
- Year: 2016
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Photographs:Francisco Nogueira
Text description provided by the architects. The house is set in a small village, called Trafaria, located on the other side of the Tagus river, just in front of Lisbon.
Trafaria is a small fishing village and the earlier country's first beach colony which was witnessed of the increase of simple and vernacular constructions for holidays in the 1950s. This house is a perfect example of those constructions.
From the beginning of the project, we search for a new interpretation of the house in the light of the contemporary living, maintaining its main use which is to provide perfect holidays stays. In this way, the project explores the whole interior of the existing house in a more spacious way, adding to space and reinforcing the connection with the exterior through the opening to the garden.
The house is thus divided into 3 tons, a private (Suite), a semi-private (Library) and a social (Living Room and kitchen), being the suite built inside a volume of wood, the library inside of a wooden slat and the open living room and kitchen drew with a double height foot.
Thereby the volume of the library supports the volume of the suite, smoothing the transition of the suite to the rest of the house, through a wooden slat that lets the light pass through and allows a visual relationship between the living room and the library, always keeping enough privacy.
The option of using the wood was to create contrast with the existing walls, giving more comfort to the interior taking into account the spatial amplitude. Finally, the concrete floor and the use of some materials and pieces, such as the old kitchen sink and mosaic and the chimney, are intended to reinforce the memory and identity of the existing house adapting it to the new spatial configuration.
