Hasta La Ideas

Behind the traditional ceramic-tiled facade of this nineteenth-century building, Portuguese studio OODA has completed a modern renovation to create 14 studio flats (+ slideshow).

The building in Porto dates from 1895 and was originally designed as a home, but was turned into an office and service building in the late 20th century. It lost many of its original features in the process, including wood flooring – now concrete – and a skylight above the stairwell.

It has now been converted back into a residential building by OODA with 14 studio flats and three one- or two-bedroom apartments. The apartments range from 28 square metres to 105 square metres, and are aimed at young people and students.

An automatic pivoting door provides access for cars from the street to the DM2 Building, and OODA clad it in stone to camouflage it among the building’s exterior when the door is closed.

“The client’s objective – which drove the intervention – was to cater for the younger market as the building is near universities, hospitals, the art district and the nightlife area,” architect Diogo Brito told Dezeen.

The apartments all feature contemporary details such as folded metal staircases and built-in storage, and mezzanine levels for sleep or work areas to maximise the small footprint of some of the apartments.

Black floor-to-ceiling cabinets help to differentiate the kitchen as a separate area in the open-plan apartments, and also helps to visually recede them in the room.

The communal corridors are covered in oriented strand board (OSB), which the architects chose partly for its affordability, and to add warmth to the building’s interior.

“We used it because it is a cheap material, and we thought it would be an interesting and warmer contrast to materials such as glass, concrete and light,” said Brito.

At the back, a patio designed for parking has been landscaped using grass and paving with the same triangular pattern found in the ceramic Azulejo tiles at the front.

“In Portugal it is quite common and traditional to use tiles in facades,” said Brito. “Our idea was to make this part of the conceptual process, using its configuration to generate other new features of the building.”

Beneath the patio, a separate, sunken apartment has been built for the client’s son, with a small, private courtyard at its front. A rectangular concrete structure protrudes through the front window, and is designed to serve a range of purposes.

“The client’s first idea was to place a mini-bar there, which then shifted to storage, and then to a place for TV and music devices,” said Brito.

The renovation is part of a wider regeneration taking place in Porto at the moment, which saw construction projects drop significantly following the global financial crisis.

“The recovery of abandoned buildings has become the new major task for the market,” said Brito. “It’s a process that is now in full throttle, but there is still a lot to be done. This building is one of many that our office is doing.”

OODA was co-founded by Brito, who previously worked as an architect at Zaha Hadid, and Rodrigo Vilas-Boas, who has worked with both OMA in Rotterdam and Álvaro Leite Siza in Porto.

Photography is by João Morgado.

Here is some more text from OODA:

DM2 Housing, Porto, Portugal

One of the most demanding tasks in Porto nowadays is the intervention on the major amount of old and historical buildings of Porto’s downtown. This project is a renovation of a 20th century building to convert to a 17 housing unit for students and young people in general.

The DM2 Building, located in downtown Porto (priority intervention zone), in the area of protection of the National Museum Soares dos Reis, is dating the nineteenth century and their original composition the property was intended for a single dwelling taking ornamental and construction of the whole characteristics of the buildings at the time, both in functional layout as an ornamental and aesthetic.

However, a later change occurred in the late twentieth century, the building has undergone a profound change taking place inside caused by the modification of use required.

The property became divided by several independent floors with features framed in services and trade and lower floors have been completely redesigned and trace assets were hidden in part and/or removed from the particular frames original, wood structure of the floors (now concrete) and traditional skylight at top of stairs. Indeed, the draft D.Manuel intended to rebuild the property, returning the initial function of integral housing, recovering traces of hidden identity, reinterpreting traditional elements and giving the building a new sense of contemporary housing program with a set of typologies ace current market needs.

So Manuel II building as a whole distributes 17 apartments T0 and T1 types, ranging in size between 28sqm and 105sqm, spread over 5 floors and are accompanied by a landscaped patio intended for parking.

The rehabilitation now completed, restores the original residential function, underlines the unique formal and constructive characteristics and adapt to a contemporary urban reality of the city of Oporto.

Size: 1,100 SQM
Team: Diogo Brito, Rodrigo Vilas-Boas, Francisco Lencastre, Francisca Santos, Lourenco Menezes Rodrigues

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behind tiled facade in Porto appeared first on Dezeen.

The glass-walled living areas of this house in Paredes, Portugal, are sandwiched between a top floor wrapped in opaque panels and a basement clad in rugged shale tiles (+ slideshow).

Named 07CBE House, the building was designed by local architecture studio Spaceworkers to create a home for a young family, with communal living spaces separated from the bedrooms and service areas.

The architects based their response on the design of traditional barns that feature a monolithic base for threshing – the process of beating grain to separate it from the chaff. This informed a series of pillars supporting a roof that appears to hover above the landscape.

“In the region, most vernacular buildings that punctuate the landscape are barns supporting agricultural activities, which normally rise from the floor using a pillar structure to create a sense of lack of gravity,” architect Henrique Marques told Dezeen.

“It was this tripartition of a monolithic base, an empty space that turns out to be functional, and a constructed element that stands out in the landscape giving a sense of protection and at the same time structural weakness that fascinated us,” Marques added.

The monolithic structure at the base of the house contains functional facilities including a garage, laundry, storage room and a swimming pool.

This level is predominantly clad in black shale tiles with a raw texture that enhances the rugged and utilitarian aesthetic.

The tiles contrast with the warm ipe wood used to clad the decking, walls and ceiling around the pool, which creates a welcoming space intended as an extension of the interior.

Above the stone-clad base, glass walls reinforce the reference to the open threshing floors of local barns and allow for views into and out of the home’s main family rooms.

“The public floor of the house is exposed to the outside through the huge glass windows which, besides ventilation and light input, allow us to explore the ideas of lightness and structural weakness that we sought,” Marques added.

A living and dining area on this floor is separated from the kitchen by a wall of the ipe wood, which is also used for a section of the north facade to create a contrast between its seemingly natural fragility and the solid mass of the storey above it.

The top floor houses the main private spaces behind an opaque facade punctuated by a series of terraces that allow light to reach the interior.

A pronounced cantilever enhances the impression that the solid volume is floating weightlessly above the ground and reaches outwards to make the most of views from the terraces around its edges.

Insulating composite panels were used to clad the upper storey, creating a seamless surface in the space between the structural concrete beams.

A fireplace contained in a faceted wall creates a focal point between the living area and dining room. Vinyl flooring has been used throughout the interior, while the walls are clad in plasterboard that has been painted white.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

The architects sent us the following details:

07CBE house

The idea of a vernacular architecture (forgotten) and how it seeks to form a clear speech between the landscape and programmatic needs is something that we always admire.

A very successful example of this discourse, are the structures to support agriculture (normally function barns/granary), which in a more or less random would punctuate the countryside, as blocks of ephemeral appearance that levitated on the ground.

It is precisely this idea of “gravitational lightness” that fascinates us and which is based the concept of this project.

Generally, the proposal make reference to the tripartite elements vernacular, the Base, with a static image of monoblock and megalithic, which contain the functions of a nonpublic space, the open area, where are all the public spaces of the house, and that explores the visual and physical relationship with the outside, and finally the Block “gravity” where private spaces are located.

Project: private building
Size: 800m2
Address: Paredes
Client: Private
Author: spaceworkers®
Principal architects: Henrique Marques, Rui Dinis
Architects: Rui Rodrigues, Sérgio Rocha, Daniel Neto, Vasco Giesta José Carlos
Finance director: Carla Duarte – cfo
Engineer: aspp ENGENHEIROS, Lda

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cantilevered and transparent storeys appeared first on Dezeen.

Pathways slice through the grounds of this hotel and health farm in Portugal‘s Penafiel region, leading to the entrances of partly submerged buildings designed by Porto firm AND-RÉ (+ slideshow).

The owners of the White Wolf Hotel asked AND-RÉ to design new accommodation that reflects the values of holistic health and integration with nature that are promoted by the resort.

The architects responded by designing a series of all-white dwellings that are scattered around the site, rather than grouping rooms and facilities into one dominant building.

Each of the new buildings has a simple gabled profile and is surrounded by a raised lawn. This ground surface lines up with the base of translucent windows that surround the ground-floor storey of each building.

“The buildings are meant to be neutral in the landscape, in a gesture that avoids an aggressive architecture imposition, but at the same time with a strong relation with the site,” explained the architects.

“The buildings dive in the ground, in a unification process that enhances the relation of proximity between the user and the site, between man and nature,” they added.

Gravel pathways defined by white retaining walls lead to the entrances of the buildings, which are arranged around a salt-water swimming pool.

The minimalist aesthetic continues through the interiors, which feature white walls, glossy floors and ethnic furnishings sparsely arranged within rooms and corridors.

Open-plan spaces accommodate living, cooking and dining areas on the ground floor of each residence. These spaces receive plenty of light from the glazed walls, while the bedrooms upstairs are deliberately darker and more intimate.

Windows adjacent to the stairwells ensure circulation spaces are filled with natural light, and skylights in the bedrooms enable guests to gaze at the stars from their beds.

Photography is by João Soares.

Here’s some more information from the architects:

White Wolf Hotel

Completed in 2013 and recently open to the public, White Wolf Hotel is a series of buildings intimately related with the surrounding rich natural environment. The built architecture is a realization of the holistic pretensions of the client. The built architecture objects, profoundly integrated in the natural context, provide holistic and spiritual experiences of calm, intimacy, meditation and retreat.

Holistic Approach

“…emphasising the importance of the whole and the interdependence of its parts. (…) Relating to or concerned with complete systems rather than with individual parts.”

The objective was, from the starting point, holistic. Since the first moment we knew this was going to be a special project. The challenge to create a place that eulogies nature, a special place dedicated to the body and spirit, accordingly to the clients alternative ways of living, and even the perception of life itself.

A place where the visitor is involved in the positive thinking spirit and embraces the related humanistic values, far away from the stress paradigms of contemporary lives. A place where one can feel the time slowly passing by, were it can hear the wind caressing whisper and spend long days enjoying the birds sing in the surrounding forest trees and the water running in the creek that crosses the site.

Due to the unorthodox motto of the project, the spirit and expectations from the clients were an inspiration and, at the same time, a profound challenge. One not only related with architecture, but also a challenge to us has human beings, forcing ourselves to question our practice common ground and our posture towards life. This was the only way – and what a good privileged way it is – to fulfil the client expectations.

The result is a place to live or visit, with joy, happiness and peace (so rare these days) with your own body and in with nature. It was very positive to remember that simple values. We now hope that architecture itself can trigger and provoke that same positive feeling in the users.

Concept & Strategy

Instead of a single construction condensing the entire program, the adopted strategy aimed to spread the facilities through separated buildings along the site, adapting itself to the existing natural conditions, respecting and enhancing its values. Thus providing a more rich living experience, full of distinct moments and sensations.

The architecture shape, achieved by basic, clear, direct geometric forms, naturally understood and interpreted; try to provide a natural non-aggressive sensation and a natural visual relation between the user and the buildings. The buildings are meant to be neutral in the landscape, in a gesture that avoids an aggressive architecture imposition, but at the same time with a strong relation with the site. The buildings dive in the ground, in a unification process that enhances the relation of proximity between the user and the site, between man and nature.

The buildings provide two distinct inner environments/atmospheres, related with night and day periods. The lower floors, dedicated to common daily uses, are totally permeable to light, promoting bright spaces and an awakened atmosphere. The upper bedroom floors provide a more private and cosy spaces, with controlled natural lighting, opening to the exterior in generous skylights above the bed, allowing star watching before sleep.

Scope: Hotel and Housing
Status: Completed (2013)
Location: Penafiel, Portugal
Promoter: Quinta do Lobo Branco – Turismo Rural, Lda.
Architecture Team: Partners in charge: Bruno André, Francisco Salgado Ré. Collaborators: Adalgisa Lopes, Ana Matias, João Fernandes, Pedro Costa, Sandra Paulo, Sofia Mota Silva

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at the White Wolf Hotel by AND-RÉ appeared first on Dezeen.

Glowing red arches straddled bushes, pathways, fences and fountains in the gardens of the Portuguese presidential residence earlier this year, as part of an installation by Porto studio LIKEarchitects (+ slideshow).

Named Constell.ation, LIKEarchitects‘ month-long intervention comprised several clusters of slender arches, which were made by filling red corrugated tubes with LED lighting.

The clusters were scattered around the grounds of the Portuguese Presidential Residence in Lisbon, a building that now functions as a museum but whose gardens had not before been accessible to the general public.

“The project was in the centre of an exceptional moment in the history of the presidential museum, allowing visitors the opportunity to perambulate on the presidential gardens and offering an unusual experience of an illuminated marvellous world,” said Diogo Aguiar of LIKEarchitects.

The bowed forms resonated with arched openings on the facades of the surrounding palatial architecture. They emphasised existing routes around the grounds, but also helped to define new ones.

“The arch – a primordial element in architecture – has the inherent power to create space and, at the same time, to build a physical relation between two places,” said Aguiar.

The installation was in place from December through to January, so the red colour of the arches created an association with Christmas. It also helped the structures stand out against the greenery.

Photography is by Fernando Guerra.

Here’s a project description from LIKEarchitects:

Constell.ation

Portuguese studio LIKEarchitects designed an ephemeral lighting installation for the gardens of the Presidential Portuguese Republic Residence. The project, which intended to activate a space that usually is closed to general public, was in the centre of an exceptional moment in the history of the Presidential Museum, allowing visitors the opportunity to perambulate on the Presidential gardens and offering an unusual experience of an illuminated marvellous world.

The reinterpretation of lightning elements associated with Christmas, has found in the multiplication of lighting arches – which usually embrace the city streets – the opportunity to form an whole intervention composed with different moments, in different places, which intended to hold a continuous diffusion within the different levels of the classical garden, celebrating the Nativities without recurring to common places associated this special festivity.

Materialised by a network of contiguous arches in red corrugated tube, illuminated by a LED lighting system, Conste.llation delicately dances on the gardens, connecting spaces and crafting unexpected routes. The arch – a primordial element in architecture – has the inherent power to create space (under, inside, etc.), and, at the same time, to build a physical relation between two places (between, inside, etc.) being related also to the idea of connection and unification.

Implemented in little constellations, the arches construct diverse frameworks, creating illuminated frames fulfilled by the natural and edified surroundings. The proposal establishes relations between platforms in different levels, between the edified, the green bushes and the water from the fountains, giving a new sense of continuous temporality to the gardens of the Palace.

Willing to occupy the monumental scale of the presidential gardens, Constell.ation is a temporary intervention that builds on an ordinary material, taking it of from its the original context and transporting the visitors to an uncommon place, where temporary and eternal mix together, developing a new atmosphere where reality communicates with the feeling of a fantasy world.

Constell.ation is a gestural proposal that recurs to light as a vehicle to evoke a poetic visual language shaped by calligraphies and sketches in the landscape, which are noticed by the soft rhythms of the light nuances. Different parts of the gardens were invaded by an intense red colour that explores introspected moments within the garden, increasing visitors’ curiosity.

The red colour, of Christmas and also of the corrugated tube, gets relevance, even during the day, because of it complementarily with the green of the gardens, obtaining an enormous chromatic contrast, capable of enlarging the presence of the installation to the passers-by. The special moments created punctuate the history of the place and feature a global scale to the intervention, which is completely visible since Praça Afonso de Albuquerque.



Architects: LIKEarchitects
Design team: Diogo Aguiar, João Jesus, Teresa Otto and Álvaro Villa, Tania Costa Coll
Location: Portuguese Presidential Residence, Lisbon, Portugal
Date: December 2013 – January 2014
Client: Museum of the Presidency of the Portuguese Republic
Main materials: corrugated tube

The post Luminous red arches by LIKEarchitects
installed at Portuguese palace appeared first on Dezeen.

Portuguese studio Armazenar Ideias used blocks of white marble to build this cube-shaped mausoleum for a family living in the city of Póvoa de Varzim (+ slideshow).

Rather than replicating the classical structures typically built for Portuguese families, Pedro Matos of Armazenar Ideias wanted to design a more modern and simplistic vault for the Gomes family, who originated from Venezuela.

“There are different values to be represented in architecture now,” Matos told Dezeen. “Not so much the old solemnity and ‘baroque thinking’ associated to death, but a much more simple and essential way to interpret it, detached from the excess of symbolism.”

The architect sourced the purest marble he could to build the walls of the mausoleum, creating a grid of white squares around the rear and sides of the structure.

“The project tries to relate itself with the sacred theme,” said Matos. “The facades carry the weight of a temple and are made of the whitest marble we could find, the colour of purity to Catholicism.”

Some of these panels are slightly displaced, allowing narrow openings to puncture the rear wall.

To contrast with the bright marble, the facade of the vault is made from reflective black glass, intended to reflect the surroundings and give privacy to the interior.

“The black mirror asks everyone to look at themselves before entering,” added Matos.

Darker marble lines the interior of the building and a single brass cross is positioned against the far wall.

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and black glass by Armazenar Ideias appeared first on Dezeen.