Braciosa

The house is located in the middle of a pine and cork oak forest near Coruche.

A traditional vernacular house from Ribatejo built in the first half of the 20th century to accommodate a sustenance farming family. The house, simple and humble in character, complies with the form and function of traditional houses of the time: brick walls, wooden roof, lime-based mortar. A house with a living room and 4 bedrooms, a stove house and a well.

The renovation of this house was carried out with great respect for the existing structure, in which sustainability became the central piece of the entire project. Sustainability in that it made use of what was already there, without any extensions, using lime-based mortar to guarantee the breathability of the walls, thermal insulation in cork, timber structure timber framed windows. A project with no pretensions to show off, where all the decisions made had as their main concern energy efficiency, financial efficiency, and the selection of contemporary materials following the logic of the decisions made in the past. The corrugated sheet roof is an example of this, a material often consigned to a poor and precarious subconscious, used in an elegant and coherent way.

Photography credits: João Guimarães