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Architects: cal30.arquitectos
- Area: 273 m²
- Year: 2019
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Photographs:Nuno Almendra
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Lead Architects: Catarina Rebelo de Sousa e Gilberto Veiga de Oliveira
Text description provided by the architects. The house is located in the hills of Boliqueime, a place of mild winters and of hot dry summers. From up there, the view is deep over the ocean to the south. The access is made by the north side, freeing up the areas with better sun exposure for dwelling spaces and gardens. Skirting the bench, surrounded by vegetation, one enters through the shade, crossing the wooden door, to the patio and to the light.
The courtyard that welcomes us is the center of the house, a distribution space around which this one is organized, and also a large room in which the ceiling is the sky. With a square plan, punctuated by a tree, this patio regulates the light in the house and is a refuge from the strong winds that sometimes rise in that place. The autonomy of the main core of the house in relation to the guest rooms was an imposition of the program, so circulations are partially made outdoors, a pleasant solution in the climatic conditions of the site.
The separation of the household areas of permanent use from those used more sporadically allows rationalizing energy consumption according to the number of occupants. On the other hand, eliminating interior circulations allows for the opening of windows on both sides of the rooms, which ensures a thorough and constant natural cross-ventilation of the spaces.
The room connecting the patio to the swimming pool is a multifunctional area, which can be at times open or closed. It can be a covered terrace during the hot seasons, a winter garden in cold weather, or an extension of the dining area on festive days. The configuration of the house, associated with robust insulation solutions in the constitution of its walls, roofs, floors, and windows, makes the use of the artificial climatization system superfluous on the vast majority of days in the year.
The terraced roofs are accessible by an exterior staircase attached to the turret that stands out from the patio horizontally. Facing southwest, the terrace is a leisure space and a belvedere that awaits the drying fig season. On the opposite side, the terraces accommodate the technical equipment.
The garden layout frames the building, creating calming views, and favoring privacy, formalizes leisure and wandering spaces, and organizes the orchard and vegetable garden areas. The selected species of Mediterranean flora, with very low water and maintenance needs, have a fundamental function in regulating thermal comfort and air quality and in creating conditions to support the fauna that will complete the ecosystem.
The white color of the construction, the horizontality of the intervention, the simplicity of volumes, the contained openings, the use of few materials, and the roof terraces punctuated by chimneys, seek to embed the construction in the architectural culture of the region.
