Architects: José Juan Rivera Río Location: Sierra Leona, Lomas de Chapultepec, 11000 Mexico City, Federal District, Mexico Area: 650.0 sqm Year: 2014 Photographs: Nasser Malek Hernández
Impeccable to the outside, the house sits on a plane to 2.50 meters above street level at its lowest part, developed at the centre of the ground giving rise to a courtyard in front and a garden behind.
Apparent simplicity and exquisite details this House is resolved with flat roofs between a courtyard and a garden in which ambiguously intersect Interior and exterior facings which stand out clearly the constructive system based on concrete, glass and steel.
The program includes two levels on the access platform and a basement which is accessed from the bottom of the street, this leading to the parking lot.
Quality materials, clear colours and fleeting reflections on glass are at the service of comfort and design, to gardening camouflages the borders and builds a landscape and atmosphere of privacy.
Architects: Carlos Castanheira
Location: 5070-272 Favaios, Portugal
Architect In Charge: Carlos Castanheira & Clara Bastai, Arqtos Lda.
Design Team: Orlando Sousa, Sérgio Barbosa
Year: 2013
Photographs: Fernando Guerra – FG+SG, Courtesy of Carlos Castanheira
Structure: HDP Gabinete Projectos. Engenharia Civil, Lda.
Hydraulic: Diâmetro & Cálculo Engenharia Lda.
Electrical: Igemáci Engenharia S.A.
Mechanical: GET – Gestão de Energia Térmica Lda.
Contractor: CMCJC Imobiliária Lda.
Carpentry: Carpicunha Madeira Ldª
Client: Sociedade Agrícola Casa do Cruzeiro S.A.
From the architect. I am asked to lunch at the Quinta da Faísca, Alto Douro Vinhateiro, Favaios. This way of beginning architecture with a lunch is an interesting one, and full of flavours, smells and conversation. Architecture, or the act of thinking about architecture is a solitary activity, but it requires conviviality, information and the specific knowledge about both the functions and the future users of the buildings to be designed. And it requires Time.
This is tangible information that’s absorbing, transformative and therefore creative. This commission follows on from another for a winery we designed and built in Louro, Minho. The clients are the same, the objective is to produce wine, but everything is so different. The specifics are different, as are the means. But the objective is the same: the creation of great wines, nectar for men who seek to become gods.
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As in the Quinta da Casa da Torre, in the Quinta da Faísca there was also the presence of history, tradition and good wine. But it is necessary to improve and enlarge the facilities in order to produce nectar which is desirable and appreciated. And there is the tourism, which the Wine generates and the Douro Region is a recipient of.
The existing Winery, which had recently been renovated and adapted to new technologies and standards, proved to be too small for the development of commercial activity, and in particular, too small to host the curious and keen tourists in the area. The extension of the Winery is more than the enlargement of a space where wine is created, stored and matured. At the outset I had it in mind to contrast the existing buildings with a new form built out of new materials. An approach that quickly seemed to me too easy and to be a way of avoiding confrontation with the existing context and with History.
Certainly, the rupture of form and materiality is very common in contemporary architecture, but I considered that this should not be the route to take. Olive trees and slate walls were moved, the fall from the main entrance down to the upper level entrance to the winery building was made use of. Paths and access points were re-considered.
The new volume of the Adega da Quinta da Faísca is composed of three different parts:
The flat roof volume clad in slabs of black slate, where all the staff facilities, bathrooms, stores and kitchen are concentrated.
Floor Plan
The volume covered by the large roof, (which is very similar to the existing), where, on first floor level there is a big hall to host guest receptions. There are two terraces, one to the North, to receive visitors, one to the South to enjoy the landscape and the succession of mountains and valleys that takes us all the way to the Douro which shaped them and still does.
Below this hall, two rooms in the basement will accommodate the treatment and resting of the wine. At the lower level and attached directly to the existing winery, a space for temporary storage and distribution will be created.
The third volume is simply a covered space that shelters the exterior route between the exiting winery and the new areas. It is an open volume, by virtue of its constructive and functional lightness It is intended that the winery should work and produce excellent wines, and that the visitors passing through the spaces can get an understanding of its workings and that they will allow their senses to be heightened, from taste to touch, from vision to smell.
The timber for the structures, the slate for the walls or the granite for the edging are not mimetic or pastiche, but rather the interpretation of the continuity of what we have and know how to do in our (Portuguese), construction, in particular in the Douro Region. It is said that love’s way is through the stomach. Architecture’s way certainly is through the head. And when aided by a lunch with good wines… even better.
Architects: studiomk27
Location: São Paulo – São Paulo, Brazil
Architect In Charge: Marcio Kogan
Co Architects: Diana Radomysler
Design Team: Carolina Castroviejo, Fernanda Palmieri, Fernando Falcon, Mariana Simas, Oswaldo Pessano
Area: 590.0 sqm
Year: 2011
Photographs: Nelson Kon
Interior Design: Diana Radomysler
Studio Team : Andrea Macruz, Eduardo Glycerio , Gabriel Kogan, Lair Reis , Maria Cristina Motta, Manoela Verga, Renata Furlanetto , Samanta Cafardo, Suzana Glogowski
Contractor: lock engenharia, Eng. Marcello Pessoa, Eng Eduardo Menezes, Arch. Gustavo Berard
Structure Engineer : Eng. Gilberto Pinto Rodrigues
From the architect. The basic concept of the Toblerone House can be described as a unique image: a free first floor with large sliding glass doors which support a wooden box delimited by concrete beams. The first floor houses the collective program, with living room, utilities and kitchen. On the second floor are the three bedrooms, the den and a home theater.
Floor Plan
The conceptual and programmatic simplicity of the house joins a structural simplicity: a 14-pillared grid, organized in two lines, support the construction. All of the pillars are exposed with a rounded format. When the doorframes of the first floor are open, the living room becomes a free floor, totally open to the gardens – a house on pilotis. The simple architectural concept reminds of the Domino corbusian system, a type of manifestation about the free structure.
The shape of the land allowed for a longitudinal implanting of the house with spatial permeability between the two extreme areas, with a loose canopy in the garden. The apparent architectural simplicity ends up revealing complex spaces. The veranda, which extends from the living room, becomes a central living space, with an external fireplace. The office, integrated to the living room, is delimited by a stand, free from any other element. This office is connected with the back patio, which has beautiful jabuticabeiras. On the second floor, the master bedroom and bathroom open to a beam – the roof of the veranda – and look out over the treetops that perfume the beam of the first floor.
The wood establishes a dialogue with the other raw material, such as the concrete, and is used as a sun filter for the bedrooms. Each piece of this brise-soleil has a triangular shape and was fixed to folding doors, able to be kept open according to the needs of the users. On the ground floor, cross-ventilation allows for excellent thermal comfort.
The simplicity of Toblerone House surpasses the organization of the house, the solutions for environmental comfort, or even in the everyday use by the inhabitants, little surprises complete the architecture.
