journal
14 / 08 / 2019
While wandering along the streets of Leça da Palmeira, a few kilometers from the ever-agreeable beaches, we uncover this residence built in the 1930s, now restored by Porto-based studio CREA. In response to the building’s wealth of features, many of its original details were maintained and restored, from the rectilinear design of the cornice to the stone masonry elements flanking the cast-iron gate.
More than a restoration project, the studio also decided to add a pentagonal zinc-lined volume resembling the universal archetype of a house extruded from the back façade and widely into the garden, that gathers the kitchen, the office, and the library. “This extension of the pre-existing building is a way of achieving an area more suitable to the whole diversity of activities needed and requested”, they explain.
Through the use of materials such as wood and concrete, and promoting a constant dialogue between “openness and privacy”, shifting from luminous to more somber and intimate rooms, they have transformed this home into a simple yet contemporary refuge, simultaneously expanding it and reinventing its past, which they have so skillfully brought into the present day.
More than a restoration project, the studio also decided to add a pentagonal zinc-lined volume resembling the universal archetype of a house extruded from the back façade and widely into the garden, that gathers the kitchen, the office, and the library. “This extension of the pre-existing building is a way of achieving an area more suitable to the whole diversity of activities needed and requested”, they explain.
Through the use of materials such as wood and concrete, and promoting a constant dialogue between “openness and privacy”, shifting from luminous to more somber and intimate rooms, they have transformed this home into a simple yet contemporary refuge, simultaneously expanding it and reinventing its past, which they have so skillfully brought into the present day.
For more information, visit studio CREA website.
Photography: António Ataíde
Photography: António Ataíde
