Hasta La Ideas

The sprawling topography of the Portuguese landscape provided the shape of this restaurant, guest house and wine showroom by architecture studio Carvalho Araújo (+ slideshow).

Sited just outside the town of Passos do Silgueiros, the building was designed by Carvalho Araújo for Portuguese wine brand Quinta de Lemos as a place where critics and customers can sample and critique different vintages.

Glass walls angle back and forth to give the concrete building its winding plan, which nestles closely to the rugged forms of the rocky hillside.

“The building’s drawing is developed starting from the topography, based in contour lines,” said the architects. “It defines an extensive course that represents the dimension of the territory on which it is placed”.

Visitors arrive at the building after traversing a winding pathway down from the road. Upon entering, they can either head into a large dining room, or make their way to one of three guest bedrooms.

The wine showroom is positioned just beyond, past a private indoor swimming pool that offers far-stretching views across the vineyards and hills.

A pair of long staircases tucked behind the building lead up onto the roof, which is covered with paving slabs and functions as a large viewing platform.

“The building is drawn by the land,” added the architects. “Its openings and orientation respect the main points of view over the vineyard, control of natural light and the discretion that is intended.”

Portuguese studio Carvalho Araújo also recently converted an old military police headquarters into an art and culture centre in Braga.

We also recently published a guest house at the Cloudy Bay winery in New Zealand and have previously featured an Italian winery with huge terracotta vaults and an asterisk-shaped restaurant and winery in China.

See more wineries on Dezeen »
See more architecture in Portugal »

Photography is by Hugo Carvalho Araújo.

Here’s a project description from the architects:

De Lemos

Answering the request for the conception and design for a gourmet restaurant, we developed the project with the idea of a guest house, private equipment as complement of the first. The group intends to relate to the wine production, and to frame this investment in a global brand strategy, instead of an isolated act in the territory.

The guest house doesn’t have a formal reception; the services create an intimate atmosphere, family like and exclusive. The bedroom is not just the private domain; it includes other spaces of social character, which makes this equipment different from the usual offer of temporary lodging. The bedroom is really a small house.

The association established with the wine production justifies the restaurant. It includes spaces for wine proofs, and a reserved area to discussion, analysis and wine critic, suggesting a flexible drawing for the space in all these uses.

The building’s drawing is developed starting from the topography, based in contour lines, as a reference to the platforms and the distant association that unites them in time, characteristic of wine’s production especially in the Douro and Dão region.

It defines an extensive course that represents the dimension of the territory on which is placed and is built in a level quota, being the direct result of the topography.

The building is drawn by the land, and its openings, orientations and internal definition of the program respect the main points of view over the vineyard, control of natural light and the discretion that is intended for the group, in spite of its apparent dimension.

The attractive point where the building is located creates a tension between the existent building and the new construction, being constituted as two poles, forcing the accomplishment of a course to relate them. The implantation of the new construction is just the continuity of that course; a drawing in the landscape, a built course leaning towards the beauty of the linear rhythm of the vineyards.

Architecture: Carvalho Araújo, Arquitectura e Design
Team: José Manuel Carvalho Araújo, Joel Moniz, Sandra Ferreira, Emanuel de Sousa, Ana Vilar, André Santos, Liliana Costa, Nuno Vieira, Pedro Mendes, Carlos Santos, José João Santos, Leandro Silva

Client: Celso de Lemos Esteves
Date: 2007 – 2012
Location: Passos do Silgueiros, 3500-541, Viseu, Portugal

Landscape: JBJC – João Bicho e Joana Carneiro, Arquitectura Paisagista, Lda Arquitectura de
Interior Architecture: Nini Andrade Silva
Engineering, management and supervision: Eng.o Carlos Pires
Contractor: Eduardo Oliveira Irmãos, Lda

The post De Lemos by
Carvalho Araújo appeared first on Dezeen.

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Surfaces appear to be stitched together with thick black thread in this fantasy bar and restaurant interior by Polish designer Karina Wiciak.

Szwalnia, which means “sewing room” in Polish, was designed by Karina Wiciak of design studio Wamhouse as the eighth in a twelve-part series of imagined interiors that includes a design based on a slaughterhouse.

“This design was inspired by everything related to tailoring, but applied in a more symbolic manner,” said the designer.

Each overlapping white surface is edged with dashed black lines, giving the impression that parts have been sewn together to form the rooms. This motif is also used on the bar and bases of glass-topped tables.

The space is divided by curtains of blue fabric, which is also hung behind the bar and draped over stairs.

Rows of giant tailor’s pins are stuck into the floor to create banisters and balustrades. Stools and chairs are reminiscent of oversized pin cushions.

Lamps shaped like curtain tassels hang from the ceiling and bobbins are mounted on the walls.

The most recent bars and restaurants we’ve published include 1920s-style brasserie in Basel by Herzog & de Meuron and a Stockholm car park that’s been converted into a diner and nightclub. We also have a dedicated board for eating and drinking venues on Pinterest.

See more restaurant and bar interiors »

Wamhouse sent us the following project description:

Szwalnia is the eighth design from the XII collection

“Szwalnia” (which in Polish means “sewing room”) is a combination of modern design, minimalism, as well as a pinch of magic and fable-like atmosphere.

The background of the interior consists of white walls and floors “sewn” with black thread. Instead of typical partition walls, there are large surfaces of hanging cloth, which also form an untypical facing of the stairs. Enlarged tailor pins serve as characteristic ornaments, while also forming a balustrade, chair backrests, or hocker legs.

Small poufs, which resemble pincushions, also refer to the motif of a sewing room.

This distinctive interior is supplemented by lamps in the shape of curtain tassels, as well as wall ornaments in the form of knobs from an old sewing machine.

The “Szwalnia” design includes lamps called “chwost” (in Polish “tassel”), a “zszyty” table (in Polish “sewn”), as well as a chair, a hocker and a puff called “nabity” (in Polish “spiked”).

About the collection XII

The collection “XII” will consist of 12 thematic interior designs, together with furniture and fittings, which in each part will be interconnected, not only in terms of style, but also by name. Each subsequent design will be created within one month, and the entire collection will take one year to create.

Here, visualization is to constitute more than a design, which is thrown away after implementation of the interior design, but mainly an image, which has a deeper meaning and can function individually, for instance as a print on a wall, or even a CD cover.

These will not be interiors made to a specific order, but designs based on the author’s fantasy and his fascinations of various sorts. It will be possible to order a specific interior design in the form of adaptation of the selected part of the collection, on the basis of exclusivity.

The author’s assumption was not to create trite, fashionable interiors, but non-standard places, full of symbols and metaphors, at the borderline between architecture and scenography.

Due to their nature, these are mostly commercial interiors, intended for use and reception by a larger group of people. Yet, it was not supposed to be an art gallery, in which art is merely watched, but places in which it could be put into use and to do virtually everything – depending on the purpose and function of the premises.

The author of the collection did not strive to artificially ascribe ideology to random ideas, but rather to make the entire design readable and coherent, and at the same time to design every item specifically for the given interior.

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Karina Wiciak appeared first on Dezeen.

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