JPC
RENOVATION
Vila Nova de Famalicão, Braga, Portugal
1996-2002
author NOARQ - José Carlos Nunes de Oliveira program renovation of a single family house renovation structural, electrical and hydraulic project eng. Luis Granja comunications and electrical project GPIC – eng. Fernando Aires gas and climatization project GET – eng. Raul Bessa constructors Guilherme Costa Gomes photography Arménio Teixeira intervention area 266.90 m²
technical
drawings
description
The story begins in the summer of 96, when I passed from the fourth to the fifth year of my course. I was challenged to respond to a criticism I had made of the "engineer like project" to expand an uncle's house. Time passed slowly, it was a hard process. The construction world has no compassion for ingenuity. Blame and merits aside, shared by experts, builders and the client, whom I all thank my (chequered) début, which is a token of everyone's commitment. The work is still inhabited, but it remains incomplete, waiting for the solar protection panels that were designed for each of the spans of the iron structure.
The house stands on the corner of the development and the client had bought three adjacent plots. The new land was protected to the north and east by a thick wood and open to the south. The original house was a common solution from the 80s. There were two very different proposals, one integrated the existing structure and reconciled it with the regional style, the other was a rupture in the language. The conflict remains.
The intervention focussed on the blind gable of the house and the unavoidable presence of the eaves. The expansion of the house was governed by the occupation rules in the Development Plan. The new space, measuring 6x15 metres had a dining room on the north side of the ground floor connected to the existing kitchen and a lounge divided by the fireplace chimney.
The lounge is the remaining space surrounded by steel and glass cut out by the extrusion of large volumes (master bedroom and games' room) that were part of the old house.