Casa Faro
Faro (Algarve), Portugal
2021–2016
The two-storey house is located in an existing allotment on the outskirts of the city of Faro, in the Algarve. The site is a southeast corner plot surrounded by middle-income second-homes for foreign retirees and first residences of local professionals.
The floorplan has been devised in a diamond shape with its wider edge open to maximize solar orientation, as well as releasing as much as possible land towards Southeast, whilst positioning its entrance and the kitchen on the opposite and as close as possible to the street limit. Since the adjacent plots to both North and East are fully built, the decision to turn its back to these limits came as a natural, simultaneously opening the house to the interior of the plot.
The main entrance and the ground-floor lobby functions as a hinge between the dining room and kitchen to one side, and living room and library to the other; with a round stair connecting to the upper floor and to the basement. Between these two wings, an open courtyard is carved out of the volume offering a shaded dining and living outdoor area. Following Algarve’s vernacular tradition of the açoteias, — flat roof terraces, usually terracotta-paved — where fishermen usually laid their stuff to dry, the rooftop is accessed on both edges by a sculptural system of serpentine stairs that wrap around the house and offer easy access from both the ground floor or the upper level. On the whole, the house’s compact volume, draws its revolving and spatial configuration from the geometry combinations obtaining from the 45-degrees’ angle, itself evocative of a certain spirit of late-modern post war architecture infused by cells and biomorphic structures.











Location: Faro (Algarve), Portugal
Client: Private
Scope of Services: Architecture and landscape architecture
Project Brief: 3-bedroom single family house
Plot Area: 1,380 sq. m
Gross Floor Area: 350 sq. m (plus 90 sq. m basement)
Landscape: 1,200 sq.m
Project Status: 2016 (concept design) – 2021
