ÉVORA, PORTUGAL 2004

The project refers to the rehabilitation of a classified building from the 19th century. XVI, on the slope of the old Mouraria, in the historic center of Évora, to house a single-family house. The operation essentially consists of the demolition of part of the upper floor, next to a large gable of the annex building, in order to configure a patio around which the social area of the house is organized.

At the same time, this patio allows the establishment of a series of skylights with natural lighting for the lower floor, functioning as a horizontal facade in granite pavement, where the archaeological design of the spaces previously existing there is inscribed. With the same area as the previously demolished nucleus, a new body is built on the lower floor with two twin bedrooms, for the two twin children, whose roof is a grassed veranda facing the garden, a green plan topographically undulating by the new construction.

The house organizes the social areas, above, open onto the patio and garden, taking advantage of a series of existing spaces with cross-vaulted ceilings of considerable height. The bedroom areas and other more intimate spaces are located below, with the parents' bedroom and living rooms to the east and the children's bedrooms and study room to the west.
The new covered outdoor atrium, which extends the granite pavement from the street to the interior of the house, as is often the case in the old nucleus of Évora, allows independent access to the children's wing, functioning in the future as almost a separate house, with common social areas. The project would be partially redesigned in order to incorporate bits of the previous house's history into the new house.