Lifting house | Guedes Cruz Architects

The Lifting house existed with voluptuous forms, corpulent walls and pillars with mass frames, bulging mouldings supporting the capstone of the entire house. False chimneys crowned this monument for its ridiculous grandeur, its irrationality and its non-architecture. Located in the middle of the lot, unprotected from Guincho’s sandy wind, it ignored sea views and those of the hills of Sintra. The changes to this house constituted a different project process and with a growing degree of difficulty as time went by. It was a curious operation. It started with a lifting and ended with the reconstruction of the entire body. The fate was removed and, as said house was obese, the flesh was cleaned and, when we reached the skeleton, the osteoporosis had taken hold of its structure. Clinging to the ghost of the original structure and the projects already approved, the construction process reflects the situation’s complexity. The L-deployment was maintained and the house gained strength with a new surrounding: a large wall in “cratered” grey concrete slabs, which protects three sides without cutting it off from the world. Through said wall, we can take a close look at the lot’s subsequent areas and, farther on, the imposing mass of the hills of Sintra. And theirs is the image from the house; especially at night, in which their web of lit emptiness features a surface of grand beauty. One enters the house through it. A large metal pipe transports us into geometrically well-defined areas, filled with light and with a stunning view over the dunes of Guincho. The existing annexes, two buildings for garage, storage and caretakers, of mandatory passage when arriving at the house, blur in with the green of the garden lined with plants, of a vertical garden. Location of the Works: Cascais, Portugal Area of the Plot: 2.430,00m2 Total construction area – 640,89m2 Architecture project by: Guedes Cruz Arquitectos- José Guedes Cruz, Marco Martínez Marinho, César Marques. Architecture Collaborators: Patrícia Maria Matos, Nelson Aranha, João Simões Structure: Espaço Energia Special installations: Espaço Energia Landscape Architecture: Guedes Cruz Arquitectos- José Guedes Cruz, Marco Martínez Marinho, César Marques Construction Consortium: Engimov + Area Pronta