“Mar adentro residence”

Living in a place by the coast where one can overlook into the vast insular horizon marks the starting point for the design of this house. Grounded at 320m above sea level, the first floor houses two bedrooms, a bathroom and the garage, all frankly opened towards the Atlantic.

On a lower, free flowing level, the living, dining and cooking areas are layout, along with a third bedroom with en-suite bathroom. The pronounced living room’s ceiling mirrors the sloping plane that forms part of the green roof, in an attitude of blending in with the landscape. The same bias follows onto the intermediate platform, where an opposite gentle slope forms a connection between the building and the natural site, merging them.

A fusion between outdoor and indoor areas is also present, expressed here through a large covered outdoor space in front of the social areas of the house, extending and simultaneously protecting them from direct sunrays, improving the thermal comfort. It’s also a buffer zone between the house and the infinity pool, built at the same level. Outdoor-indoor barrier is further blurred when the large glass sliding windows are retracted.

A series of basalt stone walls are layout from this platform downwards, reshaping the natural site into a garden where hardy plants, adapted to this site’s conditions, are dispersed as a continuity of the locally found flora.

The ochre pigmented lime-based plaster that was selected as the exterior finish over the cork insulation follows the same principle, picking up earth tones from the surrounding landscape to further reduce the construction’s impact, paired with its bespoke and fragmented volume.