Magalhães Romão House
This was a renovation design for a country house in ruins, in a variable state of preservation, on a plot within a protected zone in Aspra, by the banks of river Âncora.
The site comprises the area defined by the perimeter of the ruins and the general distribution principles of the brief follow those of the rural typology of the existing house with living spaces on the upper floor and service areas on the lower floor.
This division of the volume into two floors articulates two important natural levels within the plot and doubly reconciles the removal of the main construction areas from the riverbed and, consequently, from its foods.
The volume adopted an image and language resulting from the system of construction in resistant stonework with the same construction material, both locally available and recovered from the demolition of some of the existing components to execute and fll the house perimeter, which is closed by a single span fat roof in zinc, made with a light structure and interior panelling in wood. Faced with these restrictions and the pre-existing constructions, the proposal tried to unify and renovate the elements in ruins, redoing the interior of the house so as to serve its new purposes, and rebuilding all the parts of the construction perimeter, respecting both the image of the traditional system of construction and the intentional stark exterior and interior forms, in order to reflect in the present the specific limitations of the “case”.
