'Here, everything is where it should be. The house is organic and you can feel it on your skin'
Located 14 kilometres from Beja, this 360ha cork oak forest that surrounds the house takes us back to the silence and the senses that this Alentejo provokes.
It is one of the best preserved areas in this province, covered in the characteristic cork oak and holm oak forest, gently undulating, sparsely populated, where on cloudless nights you can enjoy a view of the starry night that is hard to find in other parts of the country.
The house was designed as if it were a work of art made by four hands. The project was drawn up by architect Bartolomeu Costa Cabral, known for his simultaneously modern and classical language and for the great attention he pays to the relationship between the building and the surrounding space and to living conditions: natural lighting, the relationship between materials, the intelligent functionality of the spaces and their articulation.
This property comprises
The main house, with an area of 240 m2, includes a large living room with a fireplace, a spacious kitchen with a dining area and equipped with Smeg appliances, a guest bathroom, an outdoor terrace, a bedroom with a fireplace/wood burning stove, en suite bathroom, walk-in wardrobe and private terrace, a double bedroom and two single bedrooms served by a bathroom with a bath and shower tray.
The atelier part, with an area of 265 m2, includes three bedrooms, one with a fireplace, used as work spaces, and a large open space where a sculpture atelier currently operates.
A saltwater swimming pool, plus two agricultural support houses.
This unique and spectacular house is built in rammed earth with earth from the excavations themselves, with roofs in reinforced concrete slab and wood.
The thermal control of the roof is ensured by a 5 cm layer of water protected by insulating slabs, with a fan device designed to increase water evaporation during the summer, cooling the water and the house, and during the winter this air box remains closed so that the insulation of the plates protects from the cold.
The house is self-sufficient.
It has its own water through a capture hole, electricity from photovoltaic panels, hot water through solar panels, a cesspool for the sewers and central heating with a diesel boiler. It also has a cistern for rainwater collection, for the irrigation network and eventual reserve.
The 360ha Montado that surrounds the house, takes us to the silence and to the senses that this Alentejo provokes.
'The place, the rammed earth construction and the program are the roots of the design of this house, whose program was defined in response to the needs and desires of the family, materialized from the beginning in a list of 'wants', not only functional but also the environment of the house itself. Throughout the process of designing the project and its construction, the house benefited from the close collaboration of the owners of the work, a couple of artists, she being a ceramist and he a sculptor and painter. evidence due to the climatic aspects, the defense of the Alentejo heat, creating an environment with thermal inertia, and also because it is a traditional technique suitable for a building with only one floor. situated within a large property, constituted strong stimuli for the definition of the project that is a response to the surrounding nature.'
In Bartolomeu Costa Cabral 18 Works / ed. Paulo Providencia, Pedro Bahia. - Porto: Circo de Ideias, 2019 (2nd ed.).
Energy Rating: A+
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