Patio House

Grândola, Portugal

2014–2004

The house is located in a large field of mature cork oaks and stone pines in Grândola, Alentejo, near the Atlantic coast. Typologically, it is inspired by the Portuguese rural settlements known as montes, which were usually located at dominant spots in the landscape and formed by clusters of volumes informally positioned around a courtyard. In much the same way, the concept for this house springs from the idea of a central courtyard, forming the main source of light and shade. Around and against this cut-off space, attached volumes aggregate the more private or service functions of the house — bedrooms, toilets, kitchen, pantry and storage — while the interstitial spaces between them generate the social areas, namely the living room, the dining room and the study.

In this sense, the house works as a dialogue of opposites: on the one hand, the attached volumes are thick and enclosed whitewashed cells with few openings, suggesting privacy and seclusion; and on the other, the common areas are shaped as organic and visually linked spaces, free-flowing through the serenity of the internal glazed patio. The patio offers crisscrossing views over the stunning landscape of oak trees — a contemplative frame that, once again, creates an emphatic contrast to the tectonic presence of the white volumes. At first glance the building has a seeming massiveness, an impression that dissolves once the large sliding windows vanish into the walls, releasing an unexpected transparency across the whole building.

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View towards north

Patio

Corridor and patio

Model

Location: Grândola (Alentejo), Portugal
Client: Private
Scope of services: Architecture
and landscape architecture
Project brief: 3-bedroom house
Plot area: 14 ha
Gross floor area: 436 sq. m
Project status: 2004 (concept design) – 2014 (built)
Photography: Fernando Guerra

North-east, north-west elevations
South-west and south-east elevations
Sections A, B and C

Ground-level floor plan