House in Foz

In Foz do Douro, the house stems from the replacement of a 1980s construction with a single-family home designed around topography, street scale, and the presence of the garden. The footprint follows the existing alignments while seeking to open the house to the interior of the plot, allowing light, vegetation, and the outdoors to participate in its layout.

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The site’s natural slope becomes a design tool. The entrance and garage are situated at street level, while the living spaces on the ground floor rise to meet the garden level. Two courtyards interrupt the built depth, introducing fragments of sky, shade, and vegetation into the center of the home. Around these voids, the kitchen, dining, living, and work areas articulate in a continuous sequence where interior and exterior cease to be separate realities.

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On the upper floor, private spaces are arranged around the central courtyard, which structures the light, views, and circulation of the house. Movement follows this void and integrates a library, transforming what could be a mere hallway into a space for living, reading, and connecting the different rooms. Terraces and balconies extend this sequence outdoors, reinforcing the continuity between courtyard, house, and garden.

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Exposed clay brick envelops the volumes, conferring weight, texture, and continuity. In the courtyards, its arrangement becomes permeable, filtering light and allowing the voids to breathe. In contrast, graphite-toned metal window frames, guardrails, and stairs precisely outline the openings and connections between different levels. The house is thus built between mass and transparency, shelter and openness, street and garden.