Milhundos House

View from the exterior, west facade.

Project details

• Project Name: Milhundos House
• Location of Site: Penafiel, Portugal
• Design Team: Author: Francisco Portugal e Gomes
• Project Type: Single family house
• Client: Fernando Couto and Andrelina Gomes
• Site Area: 350 m2
• Built-up Area: 250 m2
• Cost of Construction: 100000 €
• Date of completion: Project: 1996-1997; Construction: 1997-2002

View from the exterior, south facade and open living room window.

Words from the architect

The client's requirement for this work consisted of a low cost contemporary single house, as a permanent dwelling for a young couple with a son.

View from the exterior, north-west facade.

The ground places in the outskirts of the city of Penafiel, in the north of Portugal, in the valley of the river Cavalum and is inserted in an allotment near the park of Quinta das Lages.

View from the exterior, east facade and garden.

The proposal modifies the implementation anticipated in the original allotment and resumes the duplication rule, not observed in the buildings of the adjacent lots, seeking a more articulated solution with the nearest volumes and simultaneously taking the vast ambiguities and dis-arrangements between the allotment and the lot drawings into account.

View from the exterior, east facade, detail.

As for the house itself, it is organised in two functional, though complementary, autonomous groups, to which correspond two distinct volumes. Each one of these volumes has different relations towards the exterior space: one white and plastered seeks the most distant landscape; the other one, made with dark stone has a more direct contact with its interior ground.

View from the interior, entry hall.

View from the stairs in the volume of the rooms .

View from the room to the corridor.

Gateway, detail.

Credits

• Text: Francisco Portugal e Gomes
• Photographs: Luís Ferreira Alves / Luís Oliveira Santos