House in Martinhal, Portugal
2007
ARX Portugal, Architects

Photography : FG + SG - Fotografia de Arquitectura



This house is located in Sagres (Algarve), the furthest southwest location in Portugal.
This town hosted the Navigation School behind the “Portuguese Discoveries”, established in the 15th century by the infant D. Henrique.



Five centuries have gone by and nowadays these waters are famous for windsurfing.
Land is being split in generic parcels of typical resorts, claiming for a superficial architectural idea of a “portuguese house”, to please and sell to foreign tourists. The house was developed along the precise regulations, defined in the urbanistic project, from distances to borders, access and total amount of construction area and volume.
The highest and longest volume is located in the north to create an protect a central marble patio from the strong and permanent winds. An “L” shaped bedroom wing helps creating privacy from the acess road into the pool. Inside and outside spaces are always articulated by courtyards, a typology from the moorish legacy, while filtering views to selected fragments of untouched landscape.



The house is white and the roofs are flat, as they where often built in traditional architecture in this area, for drying fruits an fish, leaving us a particular architectural heritage that turistic resorts seem to have forgotten.

House in Martinhal images / information from ARX 060109



Portugal Buildings



House in Martinhal - Credits:

Distinguished with the “International Architecture Awards“, The Chicago Athenaeum, EUA, 2008

Address: Martinhal, Portugal

Project: 2002-03

Construction: 2005-07

Architecture: ARX PORTUGAL, Arquitectos Lda - Nuno Mateus, José Mateus

Structure Engineering: SAFRE, Projectos e Estudos de Engenharia Lda

Area: 320m2

ARX



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House in Martinhal Building - page: adrian welch / isabelle lomholt