Location
Douro Valley, Portugal
Year
2023
Area
412 m²
Status
Completed
Client
Private
Category
Residential
Coordinates
41°09′N 7°47′W
Drawing scale
1:200
N°02 — The project
We wanted the house to read as one more terrace on the hill — nothing more.
A terrace among terraces
The site is a former vineyard on the north bank of the Douro, shaped over two centuries into narrow schist terraces. Rather than levelling the slope, the house occupies three of the existing steps. Each floor is a single board-formed concrete slab that cantilevers past the terrace wall below it, so from the river the building reads as one more layer in the landscape.
The concrete was poured against rough pine boards milled from trees cleared on the site. Their grain is printed on every ceiling and will soften as the surface weathers — we wanted a house that looks better at fifty than on the day it was finished.
Light from the valley
Living spaces face south across the valley through full-height glazing set deep behind the slab edges. In summer the overhang shades the glass completely; in winter the low sun reaches the back wall. Bedrooms sit against the hill, lit from above by narrow clerestories that track the light across the day.
Floors are local oak, the kitchen is a single block of grey granite from a quarry twenty kilometres upriver, and the only metal is the dark bronze of the window frames. Nothing is painted.
N°03 — Plates
Photographs · Selected
Next project →
N°02
