PORTO – Following a programme which envisioned the expansion and renovation of a house in a small town in the North of Portugal, architect José Carlos Nunes de Oliveira, founder of the Porto-based studio NoArq, transformed a decaying white property into a powerful black structure that expands into the hillside, thus rooting itself in the surrounding landscape.
The pre-existing 269-sq-m residence was extended into a 469-sq-m house with garage space and an interior patio. ‘The intervention was essentially about increasing the area of each living space,’ Nunes de Oliveira explains. ‘Landscape was the subject of major concern, as we wanted the new to emerge organically from the old. The building emerges as a root that grows further into the ground as an anchor of life on earth.’
While the ground floor houses the garage and storage areas, the entire, extended first floor accommodates two bedrooms, a suite and the remaining living areas. The private bedrooms are separated from the common living spaces by an interior patio, which serves as a light well to the interiors and facilitates natural ventilation.
NoArq used the profile of the most prominent feature of the pre-existing structure – the gable roof – to ‘redesign the house itself and relate it with the strong topography.’
The client, a family of four, wanted the house to live up to the current standards of comfort as well as building regulations.
Images courtesy of Arménio Teixeira
