Projects Wanted - Casa Afonso de Matos, by Matos Gameiro Arquitectos

The Portuguese Architecture office Matos Gameiro Arquitectos sent us two projects to be published in "Projects Wanted" initiative. Today we publish the first one: "Casa Afonso de Matos" a housing project located in Estremoz, Portugal. The project was designed and built between the years of 2008 and 2011 and the photographic work was conducted by FG+SG.

We are open to receive projects from all around the world, regardless of their dimension or typology. Please send us high quality photos (indicating their authors), drawings and descriptive texts in English to our Marketing e-mail - david.cardoso@dimscale.com. It will be our pleasure to help spreading new Architecture concepts and ideas.

The project site is located west of the town of Estremoz, which is distant about 2 miles, integrating a rural area which consists of properties punctuated by buildings for housing and agricultural support.

In the last stretch of the site access, the path is flanked by low dry stone walls just below the ridge line, setting the quota limit of the high ground. The lot, oblong and without geometric order, extends to the east, down to a small valley where runs a seasonal water line and is populated by olive trees.

The house is implanted on a zone where the topography softens, interrupting the dominant descent movement. The location of this plain area is also the point where the view of the castle of Estremoz is more evident and interesting. The castle watchtower is an irresistible reference. Here the density of trees is smaller, if we disregard the lower part of the water line, therefore, this implantation avoids major cuts on a system intended to be preserved.

On the arrival, from the public path, the house appears to be embedded, small-scaled, recognizing the presence of the aforementioned stone walls and the sheer size of the path. This access is done between trees and low building. In the opposite elevation, in the East, the house takes its real size, resting on the base that forms the yard and connects to the tank. This process is concluded at an existing rocky outcrop facing the tank.

The cloister is the drawing generator, with which the establishment of the house stabilizes and is formalized, giving it meaning and intentionality. Through it are formally staged transitions, culminating in the mentioned point of view on the Estremoz castle, by the tank. The volumes that orbit the cloister reveal, in their cut boundaries, the fickle topography in which the house is anchored. South from the house center (cloister), a long wall ends in a volume that touches the lot boundary setting a break and creating a shadow that announces the beginning of the access route.

- Matos Gameiro Arquitectos 

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  PROJECTS WANTED is a DIMSCALE's initiative to communicate new Architecture from all around the world.

Send us your projects to david.cardoso@dimscale.com.