The “ Caminhos do Romântico ”territory in the city of Porto (Portugal) has unique characteristics, mixing bourgeois houses with popular housing, interspersing gardens full of camellias and other exotic species with gardens and backyards but also several examples of industrial archeology. An important part of these routes is made through roads that have markedly rural characteristics, with high walls of the old farms and the fountains and washrooms.
The primitive house which was completely in ruins, has been recovered by Floret Arquitectura using the techniques and the conventional architectural language of the time. The extension of the building was made at a lower level, taking advantage of the terraces, using wood and concrete, clearly demarcating in chronological terms the addition of the original.
This intervention managed to reconcile the needs of a large family with the conditions resulting from the recovery of the built heritage, respecting the specificity of the place and the Municipal Master Plan itself. The solution found – the coupling of a body made of wood and glass – allows to expand the living area of the building while preserving the integrity of the pre-existence and without coming into conflict with it, while allowing full and effective communication with the garden . The choice of wood makes it possible, in some way, to eliminate the weight of the relatively extensive expansion that had to be carried out, and to differentiate the contemporary intervention from the 19th century building. ”
Photography : Ivo Tavares Studio
