House in Carreço
Nuno Grande and Pedro Gadanho

The design adapts the program to a narrow and long plot, with a smooth slope, over the Atlantic shore.
Minimizing landscape impacts, and skipping the legal setback, the main volume "moulds" itself to the site’s topography through the cantilevered extension of the upper floors.

One of these projections, with around eight meters, configures a balcony-terrace outside, hovering and opening onto the garden and the surrounding landscape. This imparts a horizontal "sliding" effect to the volumes, allowing a "de-materialization" of the house’s verticality. On the "skin" of the building it is thus possible to understand the presence of the circulations and services that embrace, on the different floors, the central core and its structural "skeleton".

The construction method inverts a common situation. Inside, the white architectural concrete’ stereotomy denounces the walls-beams that support the central core and extend the living room in the suspended balcony. Outside, the different plans are clad by "cappotto" and the alternation of colours is highlighted by the expressive game of volumes.

Finally, different openings framed by wood windows remind us of the unavoidable presence of the sea.

 Project Casa em Carreço
 Location Carreço, Viana do Castelo
 Project 2001
 Building 2002/2005
 Architects Nuno Grande e Pedro Gadanho
 Collaborators Rita Cantante, Cristina Silva, Mariana Martins, Matilde Seabra
 Client Mário e Arminda Barbosa
 Photo Fernando Guerra | FG + SG