HOUSE IN BRAGANÇA
Bragança, Portugal
2020

[EN]
The house was built on a polygonal plot in the city’s
outskirts, anonymous and similar to so many others that thrive
through Iberian Peninsula.
This project seeks
to react to this suburban condition which seemed inevitable, by
rejecting the generic site implantation that would not take in
consideration the topographic condition of its terrain disposition
and would, by default, suggest the implantation of a parallelepiped
in its centre. Likewise, the house is built by modelling the terrain
in three levels. Those levels, inhabited from the inside and from the
outside, contain a distinct programmatic core. The first level, with
the garage, uses the outside walls to create a street front, in a
design capable of mixing the patios with the walls and the building
itself. The second level, setback, gathers the day-to- day household
chores: cooking area, dining room, living room and a workspace. The
third level gathers the sleeping areas, that are connected by a
generous interior gallery which can also be inhabited. In the roof
level one can find the swimming pool, taking advantage of the broader
city view.
The house volumetry
is built in one sole material, bare concrete, which regains a new
density through the textures and colors gameplay. In the first two
levels that meet the soil, the concrete assumes a stony appearance,
since its sandblasted. The upper level it is presented in a more
delicate way, with a wavy texture and colour tones stolen from the
local clayey soil.
The interior is
discovered through multiple ascending walkways that cut the house and admit its
connection with the several platforms. The openings that link
interior spaces with the exterior one are not afraid of the surprise
effect provoked by a less consensual harmony. They generously seek to
react to three elemental points: the viewing opportunity, the
program’s singularity and the right attention to the solar
movement.
Technical
Information
Architecture: depA
Architects + Margarida Leitão
MEP: Armanda Santos
Photography: José
Campos




















