QUINTA DO FONTÃO | ARCOS DE VALDEVEZ

Target
Recovery and expansion of a house and adjacent annexes on a plot of land in Lugar da Zebra, parish of Gondoriz in the municipality of Arcos de Valdevez.

Building | Program
The client wanted the house to have two rooms (one for living and the other for dining), a kitchen (which should be kept on the middle floor), two bedrooms plus a multipurpose room, a sanitary installation that would serve the entire house and end the basement transformed into a lounge. Annex 1, former animal house plus oven house, should be transformed into a workspace with its own sanitary installation. The oven house, which would keep the original wood oven, would be transformed into a kitchen to support the outdoor space. Annex 2, smaller, should function as a playhouse/room. The relationship with the green space, surrounding the house, should be privileged.

Building | Existent

The land is part of an area of predominance of small and medium-sized farms, where the slope of the land draws a profile in terraces (leiras), as a way of overcoming the differences in elevation and allowing its use. The original buildings, in stone masonry, were in good condition, which allowed us to take advantage of this characteristic in the elaboration of the project.

Building | Concept

The house underwent several expansions marked by the immediate need of its former owners. Aware of the problem of the lack of integration and harmony of the whole, the project aimed to fill the gaps resulting from previous interventions. The intended image refers to rural constructions, where the use of stone and wood have always been present. The repetition of wooden slats, as happens, for example, in the construction of granaries, is now reproduced in this intervention, projecting a contemporary image in harmony with a more rural reality. The image strength of the stone masonry walls led to the proposal of a cleaning and restoration operation, recovering the original color and the relief role that the material has in the construction of more traditional buildings. The proposal sought to make better use of the interior space and the exterior/interior connections, taking advantage of a greater projection, and consequent opening, to the landscape.

Technicalspecs

Client

José Casimiro de Almeida

Location

Lugar da Zebra, Gondoriz, Arcos de Valdevez, Portugal

Latitude: 41°53'36.53"N

Longitude: 8°25'20.67"W