The urbanization land, rectangular and elongated, parallel to the confronting street, is located in the municipality of Viana do Castelo, parish of Areosa, northern Portugal. Region with ocean proximity, temperate climate with cool summer and moderate winter.
Honorable Mention – Urban Design & Architecture Design Awards 2019
Firm | Valdemar Coutinho Arquitectos
Category | Housing (Built)
Team | Valdemar Coutinho Santos
Country | Portugal
Urbanização Areosa comes from an order to design a subdivision of townhouses, for which it would be planned to sell plots of land individually with project type, thus maintaining the unit of the set. Architectural management process that has become somewhat difficult and long with its own specificities for each plot over a period of several years.
Taking into account the project’s narrative, the visual enjoyment of the beautiful scenery of the Atlantic Ocean and the countryside of the place, has raised 22 houses, in individual plots, each with 4 floors, in 4 separate blocks, thus drawing a new set of outstanding housing.
The effect of the relationship between the design of the houses with the context of the place and the relationship of the movement of the sun throughout the day were the key factors in this project, creating its own dynamics. The protruding frames on the elevations and roof skylights allowed for beautiful filtered light and intimately framing the landscape.
In the facades facing the street, sets of rectangular elements, loose from the main plane, were created to allow the repeated reading of the parallelepipeds of the band plots to be strategically broken. The break in monotony provided particularly interesting effects and lighting conditions. Facing the sea, the west facades feature openings and balconies running the length of each block.
On a free-plan structural module, a spatial organization was created that would allow to combine several types of typologies, from 2 until 4 bedrooms.
In the buried floor were compartmented garages and support rooms. The common rooms face the sea to the west and the kitchens to the east to the street and countryside. The rooms on both sides and on the top floor an office with terraces to the east and west.
Each home allows for a variety of different spatial readings and contrasts without changing the set unit.
