Location: Amarante, Portugal

Status: 2017-18

Client: Private Commission

Architect: fala

Built Project Team: Filipe Magalhães, Ana Luisa Soares, Ahmed Belkhodja, Costanza Favero, Ana Lima, Joana Sendas, Paulo Sousa

Surface Area: 55m2

Contractor: Ruce Ida

Photography: Ricardo Loureiro

This is a look at the house that has large adobe exterior walls adorned with a lush green landscape and colorful house accents.

This is a close look at the colorful and patterned concrete chimney structure on the side.

This is the large interior that has a patterned hardwood flooring paired with white walls and white cathedral ceiling with a single exposed beam in the middle.

The kitchen has a counter on the isde by the wall that has built-in cabinets and drawers topped with a simple vent hood above.

The bathroom has consistent green tiles on its walls that make the fixtures stand out.

The glass-enclosed shower area is topped with a round skylight above.

The exterior of the house has large adobe exterior walls adorned with small accents of green on the roof and window.

This is an illustration of the house's floor plan and side elevation.

Conceiving a house within a very old and small granite shack, with a slightly distorted plan and a prominent sloped roof, at the edge of a beautiful garden. Each level is a single space with a delicate spiral staircase connecting both floors. The living area occupies the ground floor, relating to the surrounding gardens; the bedroom fits under the sloped roof, facing the views.

The only added volume is an exuberant tower bluntly attached to the main volume. The new object is a superimposed element that fits a small bathroom downstairs and a strikingly tall shower above. The interior has its complexities and circumstances.

A curved wall on the first floor is introduced to hold both pieces together, hide technical pipes and some storage, as well as to cause a subtle distortion of the bedroom. The inside spaces are defined with a simple palette of materials – white walls, stripped wooden floors, fractions of white marble, and mint-green carpentries.

A nice house to live in. From the outside, the ambiguous pattern of white and pink triangles makes an obvious contrast between the two actors. The outward expression is dominated by this exuberant pattern and the new thin metal roof flying above the granite piece. The texture of the granite walls is kept and all the doors and window frames are refreshed with color.

The tall tower is standing in paradoxical independence, refusing to be serious, making a courageous formal statement. A monumental object for a non-monumental program.