Hasta La Ideas

A corner appears to have been sliced away from this hilltop house in Portugal by architect Manuel Aires Mateus (photos by Fernando Guerra + slideshow).

Manuel Aires Mateus – who alongside brother Francisco runs Lisbon studio Aires Mateus – teamed up with Ana Cravino and Inês Cordovil of fellow Lisbon office SIA Arquitectura to design House in Fontinha for a site outside the rural town of Melides.

Positioned at the peak of a hill, the two-storey house was conceived as a lookout point offering views out across the Fontinha Estate, but was also planned to offer the same seclusion as a typical courtyard residence.

“The house is designed in the balance between a courtyard house, with a protected core relating to the sky, and an opening to the distant ocean view,” said the architects.

The building occupies a cross-shaped footprint. Rooms are arranged around three quarters of the plan, while a rectangular terrace extends out from the middle and a swimming pool runs along one side.

The base of the structure is set into the ground, creating level entrances on both floors. “The topography is modelled, to protect it from the access road, and release the view,” said the architects.

Instead of rectilinear shapes, each block is also gently tapered to make the building appear larger than it actually is.

The sliced-off corner creates a partial arch on the lower level of the building and accommodates an entrance to a living room.

This curved shape reoccurs within the houses’s minimal white interior, in the arched ceiling that spans the stairwell.

The house contains three bedrooms, all located on the upper floor. The two smaller rooms sit bedside one another at the back, while the master bedroom is positioned beside the swimming pool and features its own marble-lined shower area.

The kitchen is also on this floor and features a worktop with a skylight overhead, as well as a triangular fireplace recessed into a corner.

Three pivoting glass doors open the spaces of this floor out to the terrace, offering residents the opportunity to survey the landscape.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here’s a short description from Manuel Aires Mateus:

House in Fontinha

On the Grândola crest, the house is designed in the balance between a courtyard house, with a protected core relating to the sky, and an opening to the distant ocean view.

The topography is modelled, to protect it from the access road, and release the view. The perimeter delineates the internal lodgings and its transitions. High volumetric spaces, occupied by elements that define functions and atmospheres.

Location: Melides, Portugal
Date of project: 2009-2011
Date of construction: 2012-2013

Architecture: Manuel Aires Mateus
With: SIA arquitectura
Collaborators: Ana Rita Martins
Client: Nuno Correia de Sampaio
Engineer: Betar | Promee | Campo d ́água
Constructor: Mateus Frazão

Surface Area: 130 + 108 sqm
Building Area: 160 + 130 sqm
Site Area: 50000 sqm

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a cross-shaped plan and a missing corner appeared first on Dezeen.

Lisbon studio Aires Mateus used only reclaimed timber to construct this pair of waterfront cabins in Grândola, Portugal (+ slideshow).

Named Cabanas no Rio, which translates as cabins on the river, the two rustic structures offer a rural retreat for a pair of inhabitants.

One hut contains a living area, with a simple counter that can be used for preparing food, while the other accommodates a bedroom with a small toilet and sheltered outdoor shower.

Architects Aires Mateus used recycled wooden panels to build the walls, floors, roof and fittings of the two structures, leaving the material exposed both inside and out.

The edge of the roof sits flush with the walls, plus the wood is expected to change colour as it exposed to the weather.

“The wharf is medieval and assembled with wood,” said the architects, explaining their material choice. “Its identity is kept long beyond the material’s resistance, an identity that allows [it] to change, to replace, keeping all the values.”

With a combined area of just 26 square metres, the cabins were both built off-site and transported to the site on the back of a lorry.

Each was then hoisted into place, framing a small wooden deck that leads out onto a jetty.

The Aires Mateus brothers founded their studio in 1988. Past projects by the pair include the stone-clad Furnas Monitoring and Investigation Centre and the nursing home in Alcácer do Sal that was shortlisted for this year’s Mies van der Rohe Award. See more architecture by Aires Mateus »

Other micro homes completed recently include a holiday house in the shape of a cloud and a mobile home on the back of a tricycle. See more micro homes »

Photography is by Nelson Garrido.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

Cabanas no Rio

The wharf is medieval and assembled with wood. Its identity is kept long beyond the material’s resistance. An identity that allows to change, to replace, keeping all the values.

The project develops two spaces: one to unwind with the support of a kitchen integrated in the same material of the walls; other as a sleeping area with a small bathroom and a shower. The construction is entirely finished in reused wood, subjected to the weather that will keep on changing it. The forms, highly archetypal, are designed by the incorporation of the functions in these minute areas, and by the varied inclination of the ceilings that tension the spaces according to their function.

Name of the project: Cabanas no Rio
Location: Comporta, Grândola, Portugal
Construction Surface: 26m²

Authors: Manuel e Francisco Aires Mateus
Coordination: Maria Rebelo Pinto
Collaborators: Luz Jiménez, David Carceller
Client: João Rodrigues

Structure: Cenário Perfeito
Electricity: Cenário Perfeito
Construtor: Cenário Perfeito

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by Aires Mateus appeared first on Dezeen.