Possanco House by ARX - Contemporary Agriculture House

Possanco House by ARX – Contemporary Agriculture House

House in Possanco by ARX

The owners wanted a small vacation house that allowed a casual and relaxed enjoyment of their weekend when escaping the urban everyday stress. The house set as a combination of contemporary architecture in natural agriculture site of Possanco. The project carries popular architectural styles with asymmetric roofs, with one of the two garrets longer, almost disproportionate, reinforcing the compact aspect of volumes very much committed to the land where they are built. These long roofs make the houses cosy during the extremely hot summers and yet sober in the winter. The presence of these houses on the Alentejo plains, allied to the whiteness of their lime painting bringing out an almost abstract figure, compose portraits of a singular and surprising beauty.

house void Possanco House by ARX

The volume is determined in blueprint by the regulated distances. In profile, the maximum height permitted is reached by the back wall (2 floors) and the front wall, facing the street, stays with the minimum height possible (1 floor). To the passer-by, the result is a house of deformed perspective, in axonometric projection. In order to receive natural light to the south, we introduced in that long plan 4 patios: a central one, one in the living-room, one in the social toilets and a final one near the children’s room.

Possanco House plan 03 by ARX

Indoors, rooms occur in between “suggestions” of the traditional two-garret volume, and variations in scale and depth transform in each chamber the atmosphere of that inner world intentionally sober. In the middle of the living-room, the kitchen-island takes on the ancient role of the fire as a center-piece of the home, around which everything comes to place.
Architects: ARX – José Mateus, Nuno Mateus, with Stefano Riva
Location: Possanco, Portugal