Aires Mateus

House . Alcobaça

Aires Mateus . photos: © Fernando Guerra | FG+SG . + metalocus

The house designed in the historical center of Alcobaça is a record of overlapping times: A small building reconstructed to perpetuate the vernacular common scale, and a wall thoroughly shaped to house the quiet extension.

On the existing building a void is created managing the thickness of the peripheral walls. An absence of space is freed collecting luminosity from a skylight that grants a private and protected atmosphere. The compartments appear as internal additions, connected to the exterior through reinterpreted windows in the façades, but proposing an unexpected internal space. The extension of the house takes the difference between two levels: The street level and the garden that is generated with the river Baça. The form of the new wall defines courtyards that mediate the contemplation to the exterior. The social areas, work as a spatial continuum that spread through the two times of the intervention.
Aires Mateus

Architects.- Manuel Rocha, Francisco Xavier.
Team collaborators.- Catarina Bello; Betar, Ecoserviços (enginering), Jaime Coelho (construction Coordination).
Constructor.- Manuel Mateus Frazão