Houses in Azeitão
Status: ongoing
Site: Azeitão, Portugal
Architecture: Atelier 17
Team: Nuno Castro Caldas + Sara Brandão + Sebastião Taquenho
Structure: Struvia
HVAC: Jorge Paixão
Electrics: Pedro Cortes
3D Visualization: © Cristiana Fiúza
Client: Private
Total area: 400 m2
Date: 2022 -
Proposal: The project proposes the construction of two houses on a rural plot in Azeitão, marked by two distinct landscapes: a denser, more sheltered pine forest and a more exposed cork oak woodland at the bottom of a valley.
To ensure a consistent language, both houses share the same construction principles, based on a 4 x 4 meter structural grid. It is this grid that organizes the interior and exterior areas of each dwelling, separating the social spaces from the private ones, while allowing for some volumetric variation to preserve the existing vegetation and the specific relationships with the landscape.
House Refurbishment in Soltroia
Status: Built
Site: Troia, Portugal
Architecture: Atelier 17
Team: Nuno Castro Caldas + Sara Brandão + Sebastião Taquenho
Collaboration: Rita Figueiredo
Contractor: Antena Comporta
Photos Existing State: Atelier 17
Photos Completed: © Nuno Almendra
Client: Private
Total area: 310 m2
Date: 2023 - 2026
Proposal: The project consists in an overall refurbishment of a holiday house located in the Troia peninsula near the Atlantic coast.
From a functional point of view, given the current demands for privacy and comfort, the proposal includes the addition of interior partitions organizing 6 new refurbished bathrooms and a completely new kitchen.
The proposal includes also the redesign of the stairs leading to the first floor, defining a clear entrance space with integrated storage
The intervention also includes the addition of a pergola with a metal structure, creating a more sheltered and shaded space next to the garden.
Quinta da Baldaya Housing
Status: Competition - Awarded 8th Prize
Site: Lisbon, Portugal
Architecture: Atelier 17
Team: Nuno Castro Caldas + Sara Brandão + Sebastião Taquenho
Structural Engineer: João Garcia (Teixeira Trigo)
M&E: Carlos Oliveira (Grau Celcius)
Landscape: Catarina Assis Pacheco (F | C Arq Paisagista)
3D Visualizations: Vasco Nunes
Client: IHRU
Total construction area: 52 766 m2
Public space area: 23 264 m2
Date: 2023
Proposal: Our proposal uses the scale of both the program and the site area in the benefit of public use, by densifying the plot’s limits and freeing up the largest possible garden area.
The idea was to transform a vacant territory in a park for recreation and leisure, which is absent in the surrounding urban fabric.
The project was understood as an opportunity to rescue this potential and give back the territory to its users, through an overall qualification of the place, allowing its full use not only by the residents, but also to all those who work or visit the neighbourhood.
The built volumes configure clear forms that respond to the scale of the site through modules with identical volumetric. Its design previliges access areas to the houses and the relationship of continuity with the existing urban fabric, but giving the place its own identity.
House in Arcos de Valdevez
Status: Built
Site: Arcos de Valdevez, Portugal
Architecture: Atelier 17 + Maria Ana Castro Caldas
Team:Maria Ana Castro Caldas + Nuno Castro Caldas
Structural Engineer: Fernando Rodrigues (ARA)
M&E: José Andrade (Acribia)
Contractor: Manuel Barbosa Construção Civil
Client: Private
Total area: 225 m2
Date: 2010-2014
Proposal: The project consists in the rehabilitation of a rural house located in the limits of the vineyard of the ‘Quinta da Andorinha’. The project intends to create a strong visual connection with the vineyard, the ‘Casa da Andorinha’ and the forest woods in its surroundings, preserving its identity and strengthening the morphological structure of its context.
Considering its poor conservation, the interior of the house was completely demolished, leaving just the exterior walls and the roof structure to work with. A new balcony was added to the house, facing the vineyard and profiting from southward sunlight, as it is usual in rural constructions particularly in this region of Portugal
Common areas were concentrated in the first floor, as already hinted by the existing external stair, liberating the ground floor to bedrooms, bathrooms and a pantry room. The space gained new amplitude, organised by the careful placement of new concrete elements, such as the kitchen counter or the interior stairs.
Alvalade Apartment
Status: Built
Site: Lisbon, Portugal
Architecture: Atelier 17 + Paralelo Zero
Team: Sara Brandão + Nuno Castro Caldas + Rodrigo Rebelo de Andrade + Duarte Pape
Contractor: Parallel Stage
On site photos: Atelier 17
Photography: ©Carmo Oliveira
Client: Private
Total area: 220 m2
Date: 2021-2023
Proposal: The project consists in an overall refurbishment of an apartment located on the 9th floor of a modernist listed building in the neighbourhood of Alvalade in Lisbon.
Aiming at designing for a modern lifestyle, the main goal was to reorganize public areas, interconnecting kitchen and service areas with social spaces on an open plan solution, while still maintaining the possibility of separating different uses.
The proposal took advantage of a clear and flexible column/beam structural system, which allowed the connection between spaces. This relation also improved the cross ventilation system and brought southern light to the north oriented spaces, dimly lit by the modernist façade grid.
The carefully designed woodwork aimed to emphasise the sequence of north-south spaces by defining a rhythm of vertical timber porticos.
The proposed materials sought to bring a calm atmosphere through the light color of ash wood, natural local lime stone and bright semi-handmade tiles.