Rua da Costa House

Vila do Conde, Porto District, Portugal

Add To Collection

Other Projects by João Laranja Queirós Arquitectos + Associados

Add To Collection

Rua da Costa House

Vila do Conde, Porto District, Portugal

Firm

João Laranja Queirós Arquitectos + Associados

Type

Residential › Private House

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2019

SIZE

3000 sqft - 5000 sqft

Located in the North of Portugal, in the historic city of Vila do Conde, the refurbished building was originally part of two houses built around the XVII century. At that time, these were part of “Casa da Roda dos Expostos”, an institution that for decades sheltered abandoned and unwanted children. During centuries, these houses were subject of several interventions and in the second half of the XX century divided in two to dwellings. By late XX century, both had lost their habitable conditions.

Faced with such historical background, we understood that our project approach should preserve the site memory as well as the traditional constructive system, resisting the urge of introducing modernity formalisms. Therefore, we intended to set aside the idea of an architect-author, working on the building in a subtle and discreet way instead. The overall idea was to rebuild and redesign, provide constructive details and introduce all standard modern comforts, trying as much as possible to maintain the existing.

The building with granite stone facade, wooden windows and door frames consists of two levels with 136m2 each. However, there is also a third one with 15m2 only visible on the rear facade known as "torreão" (“the tower”).

At the floor level, the original storage area and entrance of the house, as been converted to the garage, the entry hallway, the stairs and the warehouse.The living room, kitchen and two bedrooms are placed on the first floor while the second floor provides an office space.

On the outside, we tried to preserve all the existent details concerning their origin, memory and context. The granite stone was cleaned and treated, the iron balustrade restored and the wooden window frames redesign in order to receive double glazing with a more efficient thermal performance. The oak roof structure was also restored with added insulation layers and finished with traditional half round roof tiles.

We sought to preserve the spatial atmospheres inside the building and keep the main features: wooden stairs and floors, doors, baseboards, stonework and stone niches. The bright tones, the minimal scenery and the skylights maximize the light. Introducing the wardrobes in a detached way allowed us to divide the rooms without loosing an overall perception of space.

That way, with small interventions we kept the traditional constructive system appearance, introducing a touch of current confort. These procedures come upon the values we believe to be essential to respect the history of the building and allow it to continue its story.