The project is for a building, on the corner of a block, built on the site of an old two-storey house which had been demolished. The building is an integral part of the urban fabric inside Lagos town walls and is opposite the Church of St Sebastião.
With the aim of having a contemporary house, the scale and design is based on the surroundings and on the previous house. The biggest challenge is to ensure harmony with the church opposite, a building of greater size and exceptional character, that is a national monument. It is therefore important to design a building to fit into and complete the block.
A house that is quiet and solid, with a rhythmic metric, whose new design brings an identity, with the weight and perfume of the times, to a town with many centuries of existence. The different levels of the two street facades and the intended spatial relationship between the house and its small courtyard determine the spatial organisation and fluid relationship between the floors.
Resulting from an analysis of the morphological and architectural structure of the surroundings, the house is a restrained but rigorous response to the local architecture.
White painted plaster covers the building, interspersed with deep mouldings in the light limestone of the region.
The generous thickness of the exterior walls of the previous house is repeated. This emphasises the shadows, volume, verticality, rhythm, metrics of the openings and the building materials, which accentuate the weight and character of the building.
A compromise between the past and the present has revitalised the space and the urban experience in an area that is so sensitive due to its proximity to the Church of St Sebastião.
Architecture | Houses - Built
