Text description provided by the architects. The project begins with the perception of the place. More than just looking exclusively at the pre-existing building, it was important to look at the broader context, its potentialities, constraints, and the relationships established within it. These relationships support the inherent idea of the project. Located in Nandufe (Tondela), the house inspires itself from this place of traditions with history, translating them into new spatial and constructive approaches. It shapes itself with sobriety, flexibility, and balance to a contemporary lifestyle. Functionality merges with aesthetics, art, and natural elements. The house sustains the surrounding terrain, nestled in a small plot adjacent to the street, a public space that relates in a hybrid way to the private interior space. It alternates between closure and openness in a gradual and controlled transition.
On an upper level, the view extends over an inspiring natural landscape punctuated by urban appropriations, transforming gradually at its own pace. The landscape is not only captured but also brought into the interior, dematerializing and merging with the exterior, providing a sense of spatial expansiveness. Its dimensions, materials, details, and design always seek the highest efficiency in a comfortable experience imbued with meaning and sustained by freedom, emotion, and beauty. The house aims to be a refuge from external life, a pause in the fast-paced daily experience, a moment of silence to see, feel, and live better. Spatial and technical details: Floor 1: Furnished and decorated. Spatial design that accommodates changes in life. A hybrid space that functions as a reception area, storage space, laundry, and garage, but can evolve and transform to accommodate other potential needs, such as an extra bedroom or office as studied already done. Adaptation with minimal intervention as it uses the same elements, promoting a reconfiguration of them.
Floor 2: Furnished and decorated. A living room/kitchen that adapts to daily needs. Living, cooking, eating, and resting share the same space. Complemented by storage solutions in lacquered cabinets integrated into a fully equipped kitchen island with marble and natural oak wood countertops. Shelf/stand next to the sliding window for placing the television, dining table. Pleated translucent curtain system. Bedroom with lacquered wardrobe integrated into the entire end wall of the space. Shelf/stand next to the sliding window. Pleated blackout curtain system. Complete bathroom installation with a unique panel of hand-painted tiles. Technical Infrastructure: Ambient climate control through an air conditioning system that simultaneously frames an exclusive watercolour fragment of the natural/urban landscape of Nandufe. Functionality merges with art. Local heating with a wood-burning stove that enhances the character of refuge. Domestic water heating with a thermosiphon solar panel system to minimize the occupation of interior space.
