Hasta La Ideas

Slideshow: Lisbon architects ARX Portugal and Stefano Riva have completed a top-heavy house in the village of Aldeia de Juso with a concrete upper storey settled over the glazed walls below. 

Named House in Juso, the building has two storeys above ground and one below.

A rectangular concrete shell wraps around the non-rectilinear upper floor of the building to create an enclosed opening beside one of the bedrooms and two private decks.

Formed within a timber cast, this thick band of concrete has a textured surface that reveals the grains of the wooden boards that once surrounded it.

Glass walls surround the ground floor living and dining rooms, which open out onto a garden and swimming pool.

You can see a couple more projects by ARX here, both of which also feature openings in the roof.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here’s a lengthier description from the architects:

House in Juso

In the concept for this small house in the vicinity of Aldeia de Juso, the tiniest area of flat land and the house’ s, as well as the high density of the new houses yet to be built in the surroundings, forcibly draw us to some sort of “obsession” about the possibilities of dilating space.

Underlying this question, the importance of “expanding” the outdoor space becomes a particular central aspect, since it is also a building integrated in a semi-rural area, where people go looking for the experience of inhabiting garden or open yard spaces.

We propose, after all, to solve and clarify the question, by widening to the maximum the inhabitable premises in their global scope, both in the vertical and horizontal referentials, in both interior and exterior.

The building has been thus structured in three floors, spatially related in profile, each level having specific and different characteristics.

In Level -1, the areas are laid out (as the regulations so demand) under the contour of the ground level.

However, this idea of “imposed limits” is to be questioned through the means of “distensions” and “advancements”, to be operated in the three possible directions (north, east and west), shaped as yards and pool.

In this floor there will also be included work and service areas.

On the ground level, the limits for the “precincts”, appears widened and defined by the walls around the lot.

The inner space is freely configured. Consistent with the strategy of maximizing the presence of the gardened outdoor space, the garage is then left aside to an “inserted” area to the south of the kitchen.

All the social spaces of the building are located on this floor.

On the upper floor resides what is the most significant expression of this project.

Until the maximum limits allowed by the regulations, was shaped a kind of enclosure of opaque lines encompassing the bedrooms and their respective yards, thus expanding the enjoyable areas and protecting their necessary intimacy.

On the roof level, an accessible terrace finally liberates the eye over a 360º view of the surrounding houses, the sea or the beautiful mountains of Sintra.

Location: Juso, Portugal

Project-construction: 2008-2011

Architecture: ARX Portugal + Stefano Riva: Nuno Mateus e José Mateus c/ Stefano Riva

Landscape Architecture: Sara Machado

Engineerings: Marco Caixa, António Paiva, Fernandes, Miguel Marques

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Contractor: Gardenblok Construções Lda.

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Area: 170 m2

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Four courtyards are cut into the asymmetrical white roof of this Portuguese house by ARX Portugal Arquitectos and Portuguese architect Stefano Riva.

The two-storey House in Possanco has a completely white exterior with concealed guttering and window frames.

The largest of the four courtyards breaks through the rear facade to allow residents a view across the plains.

More stories about projects in Portugal on Dezeen »

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here is some text from ARX Portugal:

House in Possanco

The cultural meeting point joining the house owners and the architects was based on their common interest: an undoubtedly contemporary architecture, but one whose nature and final expression would also be the outcome of a research of the paradigms figuring in the traditional architecture of the region, the Alentejo.

The implantation terrain of this small house, located in the village of Possanco, sets the transition area between the new urban strip and the protected agriculture zone.

An extensive northbound plain ends far away at the splendid Arrabida mountain ridge. Sparse water spots of the river Sado spreading, and the Atlantic Ocean defining the horizon complete this scenario of a bold pictorial expression.

The owners wanted a small vacation house that allowed a casual and relaxed enjoyment of their weekend when escaping the urban everyday stress. Our minds were for so long populated by images of the so-called popular architecture, produced before the technological era.

They are small houses with sometimes asymmetric roofs, with one of the two garrets longer, almost disproportionate, reinforcing the compact aspect of volumes very much committed to the land where they are built.

These long roofs make the houses cosy during the extremely hot summers and yet sober in the winter.

The presence of these houses on the Alentejo plains, allied to the whiteness of their lime painting bringing out an almost abstract figure, compose portraits of a singular and surprising beauty.

The first relevant constraint is the triangular shape of the small lot which, when applying the legal distance measures, almost does not allow any formal alternatives.

Conceiving the house had still to face a paradox: the most interesting views stand to the north and not south, where the windows should be placed in their quest for light.

At south there is the street, traffic and passers-by whose look inside the house owners wanted to avoid.

These two aspects ended up being the key-features of the project and the solution would end being the introduction of yet another paradigm in traditional architecture: the patio.

The volume is determined in blueprint by the regulated distances. In profile, the maximum height permitted is reached by the back wall (2 floors) and the front wall, facing the street, stays with the minimum height possible (1 floor). To the passer-by, the result is a house of deformed perspective, in axonometric projection.

In order to receive natural light to the south, we introduced in that long plan 4 patios: a central one, one in the living-room, one in the social toilets and a final one near the children’s room.

Almost all situated north, the windows guide the views to the amazing landscape.

We explored the expressiveness of the white block and its abstract personality. The totality of the volume would be white, roofs included, where the patios resemble bluish excavations, enhancing delicately the strong character of the house.

In fact, the building is done almost exclusively with the Alentejo repertoire:  white matter, light-shade, thickness/mass, texture.

Indoors, rooms occur in between “suggestions” of the traditional two-garret volume, and variations in scale and depth transform in each chamber the atmosphere of that inner world intentionally sober.

In the middle of the living-room, the kitchen-island takes on the ancient role of the fire as a centre-piece of the home, around which everything comes to place.

Address: Herdade da Comporta, Possanco, Alcácer do Sal, Portugal
Project: 2006 – 07
Construction: 2008 – 09 (estimated)
Gross Construction Surface: 250 sq m

Architecture: ARX Portugal Arquitectos – José Mateus, Nuno Mateus, with Stefano Riva
Project Team: Stefano Riva, Paulo Rocha
Structural Engineering: SAFRE, Projectos e Estudos de Engenharia Lda.

See also:

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House in Paço de Arcos by Jorge Mealha Arquitecto	House in Tróia by Jorge Mealha Arquitecto	House SGLight by Grau.Zero