House in Afife | Francisco Vieira de Campos

The house sought to protect itself as much as possible from the strong winds from the Northwest and open up as much as possible to the landscape. The solution of these two initial premises outlined the path of the project. The program required only one floor for the distribution of spaces. The solution synthesizes the intervention by building a level platform on the hillside, taking advantage of the adjustments to the topography to create two moments: the negative, that corresponds to the exterior support spaces and the volume of the swimming pool; and the positive, corresponding to three volumes arranged in a "u-form" to solve the requested program. The central volume incorporates two porches at its limit, the entrance and the courtyard. Between them, at the axle, there is an ample space of reception that distributes the access to the East volume, where the social spaces lie, and to the opposite volume, on the West, where we can find the private spaces. Between the two moments, the negative and positive, is the courtyard: protected and unifying space of visual, formal and functional relations. The materials and the form have sought since the beginning, the elementary and the containment of means. The option for a single coating material for the exterior – shale – and only one coating material for the interior – gypsum plasterboards – except for the floor that remained in shale as a continuity between outdoor and indoor, tried to reinforce the idea of typological, constructive and expressive elementary, recurrent themes in my approach to architecture.