Trios of windows and a new lightwell help to bring daylight through the clean white interiors of this renovated townhouse in Porto by local studio Pablo Pita Architects (photos by José Campos + slideshow).
Pablo Rebelo and Pedro Pita of Pablo Pita Architects added an extra storey to the nineteenth-century residence, known as Casa da Maternidade, to create enough room to house a family.
The architects extended the original staircase, but rather than following its existing back-and-forth arrangement, they wrapped the extra stairs along the edges of two walls to open up a double-height space in between.
A skylight was then added overhead to transform the space into a generous lightwell.
“The lack of an expressive skylight in the original structure defines the approach,” said the architects.
“A new scale is set in the stair core, overlapping this new vertical walkthrough that runs along the existing house, achieving new see-throughs and different spatial relations between all the floors,” they added.
The newly added second floor accommodates a master bedroom and a study, both of which open out to rooftop balconies. There’s also an en suite bathroom encased in glass.
Two smaller bedrooms and a bathroom lined with turquoise mosaic tiles occupy the floor below, while an open-plan living and dining room spans the ground floor and leads out to a terrace and garden.
Here’s a project description from Pablo Pita Architects:
Maternidade
Maternidade House is a single-family dwelling set in a 19th century refurbished house. An example directly restricted to an existing context where the dwelling return to its basis. Adapted to the contemporary needs and standards, the intervention respects its inner scale and typologic scheme.
Conceptually it reinterprets the nuclear core of this type of model, acknowledging the importance of light. The lack of an expressive skylight in the original structure defines the new approach.
A new scale is set in the stair core, overlapping this new vertical walkthrough that runs along the existing house, achieving new see-throughs and different spatial relations between all the floors.
The building is a typical late 19th century Porto house set in the city downtown. It is located in one of biggest city blocks, defined by large gardens in its interior, a bourgeois manor and an early last century maternity. The house itself was a two-storey middle-class example, with little ornamentation and highly modified through time.
The intervention aims to adapt this typical Porto dwelling typology to the daily contemporary routines. This is set from a depuration exercise, developing mainly the stair core, in order to achieve a unifying element that could relate all these different spaces.
The stairs and its light were a recurrent theme in such a narrow and long type of housing. The rooms respect its original scale, and a third floor is added considering the block outline.
The ground floor is the social level, gathering parking, kitchen and living-room, and relating it to the garden located in the interior of the block. In the highest level a guest floor is set with a wide perspective of its surroundings.
Project name: Casa da Maternidade Architecture: Pablo Rebelo, Pedro Pita Consultants: ALFAengenharia, PROQUALITYengenharia, Ricardo Ferreira da Silva Constructor: F. Moreira da Silva & Filhos, Lda Location: Porto, Portugal Date: 2013
Portuguese architect Álvaro Fernandes Andrade has completed a training facility for Olympic-standard rowers where angular white volumes snake across a tiered landscape of grassy slopes and dry-stone walls (+ slideshow).
The Pocinho Centre for High Performance Rowing is located in Portugal’s Douro Valley, a wine region that is classified as a World Heritage Site, so Andrade designed a structure with most of its body buried underground.
The building is divided into three zones that each accommodate different activities. The first and largest section is the accommodation, which comprises a total of 130 dormitories that stagger down the hillside.
The other two sections are labelled as “social” and “training” and are housed within the white-rendered concrete blocks that jerk across the surface of the complex like a huge faceted serpent.
“The two more dynamic and productive major areas impose themselves on the landscape, spreading out along several different levels in large white, formally dissimilar and volumetrically complex structures,” said the architect.
The entrance to the complex sits within a sunken tunnel. This runs parallel with the rows of staggered dormitories, which are revealed above ground as descending roof terraces with long narrow skylights.
“Terraces and clusters of buildings, abrupt, tense connections tearing through terraces, steep ramps, and stairs between walls, usually in the open, are all covered here in order to meet the needs of the program,” said Andrade.
Communal areas where resident athletes can relax are located at the highest point of the hillside to allow views out over the scenic countryside, while training and workout areas are tucked away behind.
Currently the facility accommodates training for up to 130 people, but could be extended in the future to allow this number to increase to 220.
Here’s a project description written by Álvaro Fernandes Andrade and translated into English by Jed Barahal:
High Performance Rowing Centre, Pocinho, Foz Coa, Portugal
Memory
The guiding principles and strategies of the project for the Pocinho Centre for High Performance Rowing play their part in a dense and inextricable mixture that includes the peculiarities and identity of a pre-existing, specific “place”, the characteristics and demands of a very recent program, and the needs and wants of the architectural act.
If we fall back on references that are closest to us, such as Fernando Tavora (with whom I was lucky to have studied in my first year of college, the last year he taught at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto), along with all that Siza Vieira thought and said (a lot) and wrote (not a lot, but much better designed and engineered), we need to appreciate the various meanings contained within this “place”, in particular as a cultural “thing” and, most notably here, the landscape of the Douro River Valley as a World Heritage Site, and the specific ancestral expression of man’s intervention and transformation of the landscape.
For the demands of a very recent program, as is this case of a complex developed specifically for training and preparing high performance, Olympic level athletes, there is no or very little “historical precedent to put the words in the mouth of the president,” as Sting put it a few years ago. For architects, in general, this only makes the challenge of the project more exciting. This case was no different.
As regards the needs and wants of designing (as if architecture were not also a conscious act of will and innovation), they in turn also played out within “pre-existing” requisites (such as ensuring “Mobility and Accessibility for All”, and the essential values of “Sustainable Development”), and those that materialised during the design process, such as the problem of taking on a large program (8,000 m2/84 rooms/approx. 130 users), with the prospect of future expansion (up to 11,500m2/170 rooms/approx. 225 users) in a possible subsequent expansion phase of the housing area, without a significant impact on size and the landscape.
In the resulting complex interaction, the decision to structure the program in three fundamental components (Social Zone, Housing Zone and Training Zone) merges with the (re-)interpretation of two elements of secular construction of the Douro landscape: the ubiquitous terracing, a recurring form of “inhabiting” this markedly sloping valley (read here “inhabit ” as “extracting bread from the earth”), and the large white bulks of the buildings set in the landscape, in particular of the large wine-producing estates, formally complex and varying in size (often resulting from building over a long period of time, due to successive changes in the requirements of working the land).
Between them we find terraces and clusters of buildings (often between them and the river as well), abrupt, tense connections tearing through terraces, steep ramps, and stairs between walls, usually in the open, are covered here in order to meet the needs of the program.
But the choice of structuring/separating the program into three distinct zones is also a help in the effort to place the most-used zones on the same level, while minimising eventual movements between levels, something that surely will not be foreign to the history of physical and spatial transformation of this valley, which we are only trying to reinterpret.
The above is also an expression of the typical understanding of the history of architecture at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto… not as an end in itself, but as one more element brought to the drawing board/computer, in coordination with other design problems.
Concurrently, the set of aforementioned options, accepted or adopted, allowed for a more organised coordination of the principles of passive management of the building’s energy. In the housing area, used for longer periods of time with less physical activity, the “skin” exposed to the elements has been limited , and the structures leant up against and dug into the ground (as the Eskimos do with their igloos). Rooftop greenery reinforces this insulation. Complementing the use of passive solar energy, the rooms have skylights facing south, in search of the sun, taking into account the general Northern exposure of the entire complex. The walls of the rooms, in naked concrete, reinforce simultaneously the meaning of “land”, “home”, of protection, of this component of the program, and allow for optimal storage of solar thermal energy captured through the skylights which, during the heat of the Douro summer, are shaded from the outside.
As a bonus, stars can be seen from the beds. And in conjunction with the necessary windows and welcome natural light in the halls leading to the rooms, we have made it possible that, from outside, the shale terraces and what covers them “float”, consciously rejecting any direct imitation. Even the irregularity of the plans of the housing area, rather than contributing to the “irony” of imitation, serves the relationship between a systematic and repetitive component of the program (the rooms cells), and the need for close proximity of these with other areas, whether for servicing the rooms themselves (kitchenettes, small social areas, laundry rooms for individual use, etc.) or for services such as machinery, equipment, storage, etc. This irregularity has a role in the interplay between repetition and identity, fragmenting the protracted spaces and long visually undifferentiated corridors, punctuating them with limits of perspective and unique spaces as they expand.
However, even considering the above, this combination of conditions and design options does not prevent the quantitatively most significant component of the program from being “diluted” into the land/landscape, and the future expansion of the desired number of rooms at the centre from being carried out without major disruptions to the general logic of the project (also because the whole project has been developed taking into account the prospect of maximum use of the land).
It may be added, in reference to this component of the program, that in spite of the limited size of the housing area, all of the rooms built at the level of the access hall can be used by athletes in wheelchairs. Just by removing and placing the supports in the bathrooms of these rooms, athletes with physical constraints may choose their rooms, and they can lodge in the same areas as the rest of their team, without having to be relegated to some convenient corner, in rooms “for the disabled”.
Having defined the structures and the contours of the land, the site and the programmatic component of “lodging”, the two other more dynamic and “productive” major areas (Social Zone and Training Zone), impose themselves on the landscape, spreading out along several different levels in large white, formally dissimilar and volumetrically complex structures.
Adopting a language and expressiveness of their own, and emerging as the most visible components of the project, they express the meaning of project and transformation, in contrast with the “shyness” of the terraces. Developed in conjunction with research on the characteristics and physical needs of each of the programmatic components, they emphasise the particularities of the relationship of these with the setting.
The communal areas for rest and relaxation take over the higher levels and look out over the countryside. Turning their backs to these are the training and workout areas, in an attempt to reflect the logic of effort and concentration that high performance athletes know so well.
Along with these particularities, they also foster different interactions with the previously outlined principles, in interdependent relationships of cause and effect. Formal complexity coordinates the development of a specific image with, for example, the freedom to control solar exposure through windows between summer and winter, or from east to west. In other words, the ostensible randomness of shape actually guarantees direct exposure to the winter sun through glass, as well as shade from the excruciating heat of summer. An effort was made to insure respect for the particularities of this system of construction, an element that is inseparable from questions of language that come into play. With a system of construction that includes facades and ventilated rooftops, double thermal insulation, and a system of “dry-wall construction”, we have attempted to equate questions of sustainable development, allowing, for example, for the disassembly and recycling of materials at the end of their life cycle.
An engaging and exciting challenge for the architect, the centre was also a challenge in investigation of the forms and processes of the integration of the specificity of “new” themes, such as accessibility and sustainability, which we seek to define, indefinitely, as… architecture. Only architecture. Without labels. Without adding labels that only lessen it, such as “environmental”, “green”, “accessible”, or “sustainable”. If there is anything missing from this work of architecture, it is those who, I think, architects really work for: the people who will use it.
Lisbon office Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos has designed a Jewish cultural centre in the historic heart of Trancoso, Portugal, with a sharp corner that bisects two narrow cobbled streets (+ slideshow).
Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos teamed up with Oficina Ideias em linha to develop the Center for Interpretation of Jewish Culture Isaac Cardoso on a derelict corner plot in the heart of the city’s densely packed medieval streets, which were once known as Trancoso’s Jewish quarter.
“Starting from a ruined allotment, the aim was to re-erect a building that reinforces the corner geometry, still displaying an acute angle on the intersection of two narrow streets, and establishing a symbolic gesture in the context of Jewish urban culture,” said the architects.
The building’s outer surfaces are covered in a seemingly haphazard arrangement of granite slabs, with narrow windows allowing restricted views of the interior and adding to a feeling of solidity that echoes the construction of its traditional neighbours.
An entrance on the building’s west facade leads to a lobby and a narrow corridor that encircles a central room called the Master Pit.
“The massive character of the building is also reflected on the interior design and ‘excavated’ spaces, like a sequence of voids sculpted from within a large stone monolith,” the architects explained.
The double-height room at the building’s core acts as the main religious space and is influenced by historic Jewish synagogues. It contains a raised platform with a lectern for readings and a nave with wooden shutters.
A long aperture high up on one wall allows people on the upper storey to look down into the worship space.
A geometric pattern of boxy skylights channel daylight into the central room, which is completely clad in panels of wooden strips that give the space a warm tone.
The wooden cladding features relief decoration that accentuates the height of the space and is also used on the nave to create the appearance of columns and an arch.
The pointed corner of the centre contains an exhibition room with a large, low window facing the street.
A projection room is tucked away at the rear of the building, while the upper storey is used as a women’s room and additional exhibition space. Bathrooms and technical facilities are contained in the basement.
Center for Interpretation of Jewish Culture Isaac Cardoso
Object
The Interpretation Center was plotted in the dense urban fabric of a medieval fortified village, in an area once referred as the Jewish quarter of Trancoso. Starting from a ruined allotment, the aim was to re-erect a building that reinforces the corner geometry, still displaying an acute angle on the intersection of two narrow streets, and establishing a symbolic gesture in the context of Jewish urban culture.
Altogether, the irregular granite slab stereotomy and tiny fenestrations define the elevation towards the two confining streets. The massive character of the building is also reflected on the interior design and “excavated” spaces, like a sequence of voids sculpted from within a large stone monolith. For the exception on this sense of mass, the building is provided with the existence of a large glazing which allows visibility over the Master Pit, a core that enhances all the Jewish culture symbolism with the presence of water.
The excavated granite mass, where the openings are also crafted with a special plastic approach, prevents overall perception of interior space from the outside, also controlling lighting, recreating and reinterpreting some of the most expressive features of Jewish Architecture in Beira Interior region.
The main room, which refers to the sacred space of the Sephardic Synagogue and the Synagogue of Tomar (also in Portugal) has the most obvious inspiration, rising in the stony mass of the building on all its height, filtering the sunlight to the inside through a ceiling where the complex geometry veils and shapes the perception of all sacred space. This area differs from the others not only for its size, but also for the lining of the vertical strained panelling in glazed wood, providing an inner atmosphere bathed in golden light. The religious space is dominated by the texture and the sense of rising by the wood cladding of the walls, giving it a temperature and a particular colour and smell.
Given the small size of the building, unique geometry and privileged location within the urban medieval tissue of Trancoso, the option pointed towards one outer shell is insulated and coated with granite slabs providing a ventilated façade solution. The structure of reinforced concrete column / slab, with walls filled with brick masonry is fully lined, on the inside, with walls and ceilings of acoustic control plasterboard.
Interior details
Environment
Outside paving and coatings have the same nature, made with regional granite slabs, keeping the colours and textures of the urban environment inside the fortified village and castle guard.
A pointed arch punctures the red concrete facade of this Portuguese visitor attraction designed by Lisbon architect Gonçalo Byrne to present the history of a fourteenth century battle between Portuguese and Castilian forces (+ slideshow).
The Centro de Interpretação da Batalha de Atoleiros was designed to host an exhibition dedicated to the story of the Battle of Atoleiros, the first clash of an eight-year period of Portuguese civil war that started when King Ferdinand I died without any male heirs.
Unable to situate the building on the historic battlefield, Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos created the centre in the nearby town of Fronteira, eastern Portugal, on a site overlooking a park.
The exterior walls are made from blocks of pigmented concrete and have a coarse surface intended to be reminiscent of the uneven construction of medieval buildings.
“The body of the building recalls the tactility of the traditional medieval construction, presenting rough textured surfaces very close to the primal textures achieved by human hand,” said the design team.
Slabs of schist, a fine-grained rock, are slotted between the layers of concrete to support the structure and give additional texture to the facade.
The pointed arch cuts right across the building to create a pair of glazed entrances beneath the shelter of the concrete. This glazing also wraps around the rear of the building to create a row of windows.
A curving wooden bench is positioned behind the windows, creating a seating area at the end of the exhibition trail where visitors are expected to look out across the park and recreate battle scenes with their imagination.
Here’s a project description from Gonçalo Byrne Arquitectos:
Centre for Interpretation of the Battle of Atoleiros
Object
The Centre for Interpretation of the Battle of Atoleiros, in Fronteira, is a cultural equipment intended to raise social awareness on the several perspectives over the battle occurred on April 6th 1384, and its importance in the context of the dynastic disputes between the kingdoms of Portugal and Castela, by the end of the XIVth Century.
Given the impossibility on plotting the Interpretation Centre on-site, in the battlefield area, the City Council approved its plot in the town core, on a location with high visibility and inserted in an urban park system that simulates and evokes the old battlefield. During the visit to the Interpretation Centre, visitors will experience different visual perspectives of the battlefield, but also about the history, through its protagonists and authors, led by the hand of the painter Martins Barata.
A large bench, at the end of the exhibition circuit, presents urban park in all its dimensions, rehearsing another exhibition discourse, this made of vegetables and inert elements, a sculptural dimension that simulates the plains and the imagination refers to the Battle of Atoleiros.
Materials
The body of the building recalls the tactility of the traditional medieval construction, presenting rough textured surfaces, achieved by the use of pigmented concrete with raw and irregular expression, very close to the primal textures achieved by human hand. This texture is enhanced by interposing lines of schist slabs in the horizontal joints of the building.
As a whole, the building generates a gravitational presence; almost an earth sculpture dyed in its own tonalities, evoking time in the spontaneous patina patterns, resembling a stained vertical battlefield, between a small and a larger body, like the two armies in conflict.
Structure
The combined use of concrete walls and a structure formed by a concrete column/beam/slab system, allowed maximal area exploitation and the display of generous exhibition areas.
Through the completion of consoles the structure had acquired more complexity, allowing lateral glazing and motivating an open relationship between inner and outside areas, between exhibition and urban park.
Portuguese southern landscape has a golden/reddish tone. The reddish wash of the building tries to emulate those colours and patterns, therefore reinforcing a sense of belonging.
Colour and textures are also enhanced by the usage of the same pitch used on the urban park paving system, serving as an essential framework for the Interpretation Centre, yet reinterpreting the battlefield original landscape.
In an impassioned and informative short documentary by director Brian Fortune, viewers are given a glimpse into one man’s extraordinary life. Chris Goldmann, the film’s subject, is the…
Bright red walls contrast with vivid green lawns at this art and culture centre in Portugal by Lisbon architecture firm Future Architecture Thinking (+ slideshow).
Located in the town of Miranda do Corvo, Casa das Artes is made of three differently sized volumes that are painted red all over to help the building stand out as much as possible from its surroundings.
Asymmetric roof profiles were intended by Future Architecture Thinking to correspond with the angular rooftops of nearby houses, as well as with the irregular geometries of the distant Lousã Mountains.
“The proposal is based on a contemporary language that is structurally very strong through the continuity between the facades and the roof,” said the architects.
“The slopes of the roof look for identification with the city rooftops and the use of the strong colour is intended to create a building which is immediately recognisable by the public,” they added.
A chimney-like skylight stretches up beyond the roof, drawing evening sunlight from the west down to a covered terrace at the building’s entrance.
The largest of the three volumes accommodates the stage of a 300-seat auditorium, while seating extends back into a second block positioned behind.
This block also contains the auditorium foyer, which doubles up as a split-level gallery for temporary exhibitions, while an independent cafe is housed in the third and smallest block.
Read on for more information from Future Architecture Thinking:
Casa das Artes in Miranda do Corvo
The Casa das Artes (House of the Arts) in Miranda do Corvo expresses the meeting between two identities, rural and urban, in a landscape marked by the Lousã Mountains.
The building features a contemporary and volumetrically expressive language. The sloping roofs establish a dialogue with the geometry of the mountain landscape, in an analogy to the village rooftops. The dynamism achieved through the continuity between facades and roof is accented by a strong red colour, emphasising its design and highlighting the building through the surrounding landscaped area vegetation.
More than a building, the Casa das Artes pretends to be an iconic landmark, celebrating the place where people meet, where culture and art happens, a space capable of promoting and stimulating creative activity, increasing the population quality of life.
The project was conceived by creating versatile spaces, technically suitable for different kinds of events, in order to serve all segments of the population.
The deployment area was optimised to favour landscaped spaces, allowing the creation of an amphitheatre for outdoor events, integrated in a garden which is a public space for the village, with several spaces and inviting pathways for leisure.
The building consists of three volumes reflecting different sorts of use: the first one containing the stage areas, the second comprising the audience and foyer, and the third with a cafeteria and a future museum area, which constitute a visually independent volume.
The proposed diversity of accesses for the building attempts to emphasise the characterisation of this site as a public space, while allowing the public direct access of specific places, such as the museum area and cafeteria, independently, without passing through the auditorium.
The main entrance is through the foyer. This space may function as exhibition area which can be divided into two by a short flight of stairs. From here depart two paths to an auditorium for nearly 300 people, with a motorised orchestra pit and six technical levels, properly equipped for holding theatre performances, opera, concerts, conferences or lectures.
The cafeteria can operate independently from the rest of the building, or even serve as an entrance point providing access to the auditorium. This space has a covered terrace with a skylight oriented west, channelling sunset light into its interior. The terrace area gives access to a multimedia room. The facade of the museum area is facing the northern part of the garden where one of the main entries is located and the outdoor amphitheatre.
Client: Municipality of Miranda do Corvo Location: Miranda do Corvo, Portugal Area: 2.360 sqm
Architect: FAT – Future Architecture Thinking Project Team: Architect Miguel Correia, Architect Cláudia Campos, Architect Sérgio Catita, Architect Patrícia de Carvalho, Architect Miguel Cabral, Architect Margarida Magro, Architect Sara Gonçalves, Architect Telmo Maia, Architect Gabriel Santos, Architect Hilário Abril, Engineer José Pico, Landscape Architect Sara Távora Builder: TECNORÉM – Engenharia e Construções, S.A. Year: 2010/2013
A concrete kitchen worktop doubles up as a dining room floor inside this renovated house in Porto by Portugeuse studio Ezzo (+ movie).
Named Flower House, the project involved demolishing and rebuilding the building’s upper storeys, as well as refurbishing the existing ground floor to create sunken zones for the kitchen and living room.
“The project was aimed at creating a series of flowing, contemporary spaces, allowing a greater degree of flexibility and linking the internal spaces of the ground floor in just one: living, dining and kitchen,” said Ezzo.
Kitchen cabinets are slotted beneath the concrete floor, while a small breakfast counter is created by an extended section of the same surface.
The concrete was hand-poured on site and has been finished with a waterproof coating to give it a polished look.
The hollowed-out living area sits adjacent to the kitchen, whilst a dining area and small bathroom are positioned just behind.
The house’s new upper storeys are contained within a traditional vernacular form with a gabled roof, but the exterior has been painted entirely white.
“The core ambition of the scheme was to create a dwelling, which, over time, would come to reflect an approach to contemporary renovation work,” explained the architects.
The first floor accommodates a pair of bedrooms that open out onto a shared balcony, overlooking the surrounding city rooftops. Both bedrooms feature built-in storage space.
A bathroom with bright blue walls is located on the left hand side of the landing, while a wooden ladder leads up to a study room and seating area on the top floor.
A courtyard is located at the back of the house and is surrounded by walls clad in polycarbonate plastic panels.
Flower House involved the remodelling of a small old house to provide space to accommodate a single client. The scheme included the refurbishment of the existing ground floor, demolished of the 1st floor as well as the construction of a new one.
The building is set within heritage site, which has drawn out a unique response to the history and settings. The building geometry, orientation and size is driven by the site constraints.
At the site, the existing buildings are idiosyncratic of their type, with flank elevations and roof profiles, which run the breadth of the neighbourhood of Foz Velha. These buildings are detailed in a utilitarian manner, with an honesty of material and detailing one would expect.
In responding to this condition, the design of the new building make clear reference to their historical parts. A two storey dwelling with character and personality, respectful of the existing neighbourhood, and taking advantage of the views.
In the interior the project was aimed at creating a series of flowing, contemporary spaces, allowing a greater degree of flexibility, linking the internal spaces of the ground floor in just one: living, dining and kitchen. Two different stairs ensures the connectivity between ground floor living spaces and upper floors of bedrooms and study space.
The core ambition of the scheme was to create a dwelling, which, over time, would come to reflect an approach to contemporary renovation work and create a flexible environment for who will live there.
Accessible via a path with only 2 m wide, flanked by old houses, externally, the building is wrapped in a homogenous white skin, which wraps up from the landscape.
This relationship of building to street retains those historic associations described, and similarly allows for a contemporary sculptural form to sit comfortably within its context.
Project: Flower House Architects: EZZO – César Machado Moreira Collaborator: João Pedro Leal Location: Porto, Portugal Project Area: 120 sqm Project year: 2010/2013 Engineering: Penman Ldª Constructor: Van Urbis
Portuguese architect José Carlos Cruz claims to have built the world’s first cork-clad hotel, located amongst the olive and cork trees of Portugal’s Alentejo region (+ slideshow).
Situated outside the city of Évora, the Ecork Hotel comprises a cork-clad restaurant and leisure complex with 56 hotel suites contained in a series of adjacent bungalows.
José Carlos Cruz and his design team chose cork to clad the walls of the main building because it is both readily available and highly insulating.
“Portugal is the second biggest exporter of cork in the world, so we thought it would be a good starting point for the building,” project architect António Cruz told Dezeen.
There are only a few small openings in the outer walls of the building, creating large uninterrupted surfaces of the material.
“One of our intentions was to promote cork as a cladding material,” said Cruz. “It’s a good thermal insulator and is also recyclable.”
The two-storey leisure complex accommodates gym and spa facilities, conferences rooms and an indoor swimming pool, which all surround a central courtyard.
The first floor has walls but no roof, accommodating a bar, outdoor pool and sunbathing deck with views out over the rural landscape.
The hotel suites are set back from the main building in a layout based on the typical arrangement of a medieval Portuguese village.
“The general plan is inspired by the medieval villages of the Alentejo, where it was common to find a main complex or castle, and several white buildings around it,” said the architects.
With clean white-rendered walls, the suites form rows that line the edges of walkways. Each one comes with its own private courtyard, screened behind a perforated wall.
Here’s a project description from Jose Carlos Cruz Arquitecto:
Ecork Hotel
Ecork is a Hotel in Évora, Portugal, with aspa, health club, gym, restaurant, bar, conference rooms, outdoor pool and 56 bungalows.
Built on a set of cork and olive trees, the general plan is inspired by the Medieval villages of the Alentejo, where it was common to find a main complex or castle, and several white buildings around it.
All services and hotel facilities are aggregated into a single building, freeing the land outside the bungalows.
Influenced by the vernacular architecture and Arabic, is created a monolithic volume with small openings to the outside, which together with cork coating which is fully recyclable and ensures thermal protection of the building.
Built around a large courtyard, the layout is designed so as to take advantage of crosswinds and air circulation, thus reducing power consumption to the minimum necessary.
In order to ensure the lowest possible occupation and overview of the Alentejo Landscape, outdoor pool and bar are located on the roof of the building.
All 56 bungalows are suites. Their deployment, scattered among the olive trees around the property is defined by the structure of internal thoroughfares.
These paths are read as a series of abstract volumes and surfaces, plastered and whitewashed.
Location: Évora, Portugal Area: 6300 m2 Design time: November 2008 Completion time: May 2013
Architect: José Carlos Cruz Interior Design and Decoration: José Carlos Cruz Civil engineer: Newton, Consultores de Engenharia Mechanics Engineer: ENES.COORD
Portuguese studio Tiago do Vale Arquitectos has renovated a townhouse in Braga that was built as a servants’ house in the late nineteenth century and modelled on the style of an Alpine chalet (+ slideshow).
Tiago do Vale Arquitectos overhauled all three storeys of the Three Cusps Chalet, which was originally built at a time when a number of migrants were returning to Portugal from Brazil and were commissioning grand houses influenced by trends from across Europe and South America.
Now transformed into a light and modern home and workplace for a couple, the old house forms part of a row of three properties that were built to house the servants of a nearby palace, combining typical Portuguese materials and proportions with Alpine forms and details.
“In general everything is original, or reconstructed as the original, which required the elimination of many unqualified more recent add-ons,” the architects told Dezeen.
A vivid shade of turquoise differentiates the building from its neighbours, while decorative eaves and stonework have been restored around the edges of the roof and windows.
“We used a combination between the colour palette of the nineteenth century – pastels were quite popular at that time and in this region – and a sensibility to harmonise it with the street at its present state,” said the architects.
Unnecessary partitions and extensions were removed from the interior, creating open-plan spaces that are defined by the position of a central staircase that had previously been boxed in.
At street level, a large split-level space with a white marble floor can function as either a shop or office. A large glass partition fronts the staircase on the left-hand side of the space, revealing the route up to the domestic spaces above.
This staircase narrows with each flight of stairs, intended to emphasise how the degree of privacy increases on the upper levels.
The first floor sits just above the ground level at the rear of the building, which created an opportunity for a small outdoor deck. A kitchen and dining area are just in front, while the living room is positioned opposite.
The final storey accommodates a large bedroom with simple furnishings, as well as a timber-lined dressing room that contrasts with the clean white aesthetic of the other rooms.
Here’s a project description from Tiago do Vale Architects:
The Three Cusps Chalet
Historical context
In the second half of the 19th century Portugal saw the return of a large number of emigrants from Brazil. While returning to their northern roots, specially in the Douro and Minho regions, they brought with them sizeable fortunes made in trade and industry, born of the economic boom and cultural melting pot of the 19th century Brazil. With them came a culture and cosmopolitanism that was quite unheard of in the Portugal of the eighteen-hundreds.
That combination of Brazilian capital and taste sprinkled the cities of northern Portugal with examples of rich, quality architecture, that was singular in its urban context and frequently informed by the best that was being done in both Europe and Brazil.
Built context
The “Three Cusps Chalet” is a clear example of the Brazilian influence over Portuguese architecture during the 19th century, though it’s also a singular case in this particular context.
Right as the Dom Frei Caetano Brandão Street was opened, a small palace was being built in the corner with the Cathedral’s square and thanks to large amounts of Brazilian money. It boasted high-ceilings, rich frescos, complex stonework, stucco reliefs and exotic timber carpentry. In deference to such noble spaces, the kitchen, laundry, larders and personnel quarters, which were usually hidden away in basements and attics, were now placed within one contiguous building, of spartan, common construction.
Built according to the devised model of an alpine chalet, so popular in 19th century Brazil (with narrow proportions, tall windows, pitched roofs and decorated eaves), the “Three Cusps Chalet” was that one building.
Due to the confluence of such particular circumstances it’s quite likely the only example of a common, spartan, 19th century building of Brazilian ancestry in Portugal.
Siting at the heart of both the Roman and medieval walls of Braga, a stone’s throw away from Braga’s Cathedral (one of the most historically significant of the Iberian Peninsula) this is a particularly sunny building with two fronts, one facing the street at west and another one, facing a delightful, qualified block interior plaza at east, enjoying natural light all day long.
At the time of our survey, its plan is organised by the staircase (brightened by a skylight), placed at the centre of the house and defining two spaces of equal size, east and west, on each of the floors.
The nature of each floor changes from public to private as we climb from the store at the street level to a living room (west) and kitchen (east) at the first floor, with the sleeping quarters on top.
Materials-wise, all of the stonework and the peripheral supportive walls are built with local yellow granite, while the floors and roof are executed with wooden beams with hardwood flooring.
Architectural project
Confronted by both its degrading state and degree of adulteration, and by the interest of its story and typology, the design team took as their mission the recovery the building’s identity, which had been lost in 120 years of small unqualified interventions. The intention was to clarify the building’s spaces and functions while simultaneously making it fit for today’s way of living.
The program asked for the cohabitation of a work studio and a home program. Given the reduced area of the building, the original strategy of hierarchising spaces by floor was followed. The degree of privacy grows as one climbs the staircase. The stairs also get narrower with each flight of steps, informing the changing nature of the spaces it connects.
A willingness to ensure the utmost transparency throughout the building, allowing light to cross it from front to front and from top to bottom, defined all of the organisational and partitioning strategies resulting in a solution related to a vertical loft.
The design team took advantage of a 1.5 m height difference between the street and the block’s interior plaza to place the working area on the ground level, turning it westward and relating it to the street. Meanwhile, the domestic program relates with the interior plaza and the morning light via a platform that solves the transition between kitchen and exterior. This allows for both spaces to immediately assert quite different personalities and light, even though they are separated by just two flights of stairs.
The staircase geometry, previously closed in 3 of its sides, efficiently filters the visual relations between both programs while still allowing for natural light to seep down from the upper levels and illuminate the working studio.
The second floor was kept for the social program of the house. Refusing the natural tendency for compartmentalising, the staircase was allowed to define the perimeters of the kitchen and living room, creating an open floor with natural light all day long. Light enters from the kitchen in the morning, from the staircase’s skylight and from the living room in the afternoon.
Sections
Climbing the last and narrow flights of stairs we reach the sleeping quarters where the protagonist is the roof, whose structure was kept apparent, though painted white. On the other side of the staircase, which is the organising element on every floor, there’s a clothing room, backed by a bathroom.
If the visual theme of the house is the white colour, methodically repeated on walls, ceilings, carpentry and marble, the clothing room is the surprise at the top of the path towards the private areas of the house. Both the floor and roof structure appear in their natural colours surrounded by closet doors constructed in the same material. It reads as a small wooden box, a counterpoint to the home’s white box and being itself counterpointed by the marble box of the bathroom.
Fitting with the strategy of maximising light and the explicitness of the spaces, the material and finish choices used in this project were intentionally limited. White colour was used for the walls, ceilings and carpentry due to its spacial qualities and lightness. Wood in its natural colour is used for the hardwood floors and clothing room due to its warmth and comfort. Portuguese white Estremoz marble, which covers the ground floor, countertops and on the bathrooms and laundry walls and floors, was chosen for its texture, reflectivity and colour.
Window and door details
All of the original wood window frames of the main façade were recovered, the roof was remade with the original Marseille tiles over a pine structure and the decorated eave restored to its original glory.
The hardwood floors were remade with southern yellow pine over the original structure and all the surfaces that required waterproofing covered with Portuguese Estremoz marble.
Ground floor window frames were remade in iron, as per the original, but redesigned in order to maximise natural illumination (as on the east façade).
Window and eaves details
Architecture: Tiago do Vale Architects, Portugal Location: Sé, Braga, Portugal Construction: Constantino & Costa Project year: 2012 Construction year: 2013 Site area: 60 m2 Construction area: 165 m2
Portuguese studio Belém Lima Arquitectos has perched a pair of gabled cabins on the edge of a dam in northern Portugal to provide a public boathouse and cafe (+ slideshow).
Belém Lima Arquitectos positioned the cabins at opposite ends of a wooden jetty alongside Bagaúste Dam in Lamago.
The new facilities serve the increasing number of tourists travelling past the dam on their way to wineries in the nearby Douro Valley.
“The location was already used in the summer but the facilities were very poor,” the architects told Dezeen.
“The Mayor of Lamego suggested building a new wharf, a bar area and a warehouse for canoes as well as the entire surrounding area,” they added.
The single-storey cabins have sharply pointed rooftops and their exteriors are clad with aluminium panels.
The combined cafe and bar is filled with tables and chairs for customers, which spill out onto a covered terrace.
Glass windows along one side of the cafe offer views out across the dam, while ramps outside lead down to the water’s edge.
The new boathouse sits at the other end of the jetty. Exposed diagonal braces support the walls, interspersed with metal hooks for storing public rowing boats and canoes.
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