Casa da Lila | Studio Arte architecture & design

A complete re-do project with special official built heritage department approval of a single family house, built on the fifties, with modern lines, and located in the heart of the historical center of Silves, Algarve, Portugal. 

Basically the existing situation was on a full ruin state, all materials collapsing indoor and outdoor. Due to the restricted permissions on this historical protected area of the city, the main concept was based on restoring the street northern facade, keeping the height on the rebuild red tiled roof, apply new wooden framing and renewing the coloring, therefore the built identity and layout of the ‘house’s face’ was kept.
Balancing with three terraces on different levels (floors), facing the south river sight, a modern shaped mini tower is sticking out from the terraces.
From stones and materials collapsing, a new pure white world was created.
The back garden south façade pretends to achieve the principle of contemporary architecture… big windows for natural lighting and ventilation, pure/plain stucco finishing and permanent visual relation of the interior to the exterior living.
Indoor there’s also an approach for purity… main white color finishing, concrete look and feel solid flooring, modern finishing’s on bathrooms/walk-in kitchen, mixing of traditional handmade tiles with different geometric patterns, wooden feeling on the ceiling and flooring of the attic’s bedroom.
The circulation scheme is very simple, based on open spaces, sided by a stairwell cut, connecting the three levels.
In general, this projects aims to create an harmonic aesthetical language on the combination of two worlds, the traditional (on the street front façade) with the contemporary (on the indoor and south back façade).

Architecture by STUDIOARTE

Main architect; João Carriço

Collaborators – junior architect
Vítor Jesus

Development, project management and design concept
Arnold Aarssen

Construction
Adelino Lopes Gomes, Lda.

Engineering
Paulo Terra

Photography
Luís Henrique Da Cruz