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Architects: Marta Brandao, Mário Souza
- Year: 2021
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Photographs:José Campos
Text description provided by the architects. Located in the Algarve, south of Portugal, this house was built as a refuge from the bustle of the busy city. With its façades almost fully glazed, the interior of the house allows endless vistas of pine trees that are all around the site, whereas the façade edges with wooden slats (ensuring privacy for the bathrooms) reinforce the wooden character of the house and enhance its integration in the natural landscape.
With an elegant regular shape that extends along a single floor, this 160 square meter house respects the usual 1,60m grid, common to all Mima houses, proving once again that the base system used by Mimahousing allows for the conception of houses that differ substantially from one another in terms of character, despite the constant regularity of the plans and the simplicity of the house shapes.
This house is particularly interesting for the symmetry of its plan. Elevated from the ground in 1,20m, revealing its wooden foundations and structure, the core of the house grasps the ground through wide wooden stairs. The kitchen and living area are located at the centre of the house, with a 1,60m grid underlined in the wooden ceiling, and the on suit bedrooms are on the opposite edges, two on each side, as symmetrical scheme.
The structural framing for the house was built out of Nordic pine and was constructed using interlocking joinery. The wooden frames are in kambala wood. The extensive louvres in the edges are made out of thermo treated pine wood. Exteriors are detailed with zinc flashing; interior surfaces are finished with pine and oak wood, and the walls are in gypsum with a refined white plaster.
