PRIVATE HOME
BARREIRO
This project aimed to re-purpose a 2-floor adjacent house on a street angle into one singular monolithically artist residence. Located on the south bank of the Tagus river estuary, in the district of Setúbal, the municipality of Barreiro is part of the metropolitan area of Lisbon.
year: 2022
location: Portugal, Barreiro
kitchen
This project aimed to re-purpose a 2-floor adjacent house on a street angle into one singular monolithically artist residence. Located on the south bank of the Tagus river estuary, in the district of Setúbal, the municipality of Barreiro is part of the metropolitan area of Lisbon.
Control of room illumination adapts to the emotional quality of the space. It presupposes the importance of light in the art of traveling inward. The semi-darkness of the interior suggests remoteness and refuge. It tempers all features of the rooms and blends them into harmony. The limited view of the outside produces a glimpse of the macrocosm, by symbolically establishing a relation between man’s moral perceptions and the universe.
All furniture pieces are the source of true local craftsmanship. The soul of modern custom-made furniture pieces is a symbol of heritage to Portuguese tradition.
The use of patina and materials aim at suggesting the atmosphere of a shelter of the artist’s mind with its remoteness, primitiveness, humbleness, simplicity, and semi-darkness.
The physique of this archaic body is infinite in its purest spiritual perception, an immense source for the exercise of the art of stillness. It reveals abundant richness by substantiating humble poverty.
A hidden stairway will lead finally to the rooftop, where the morphology of this space aims at simplification to the very point where the subject and object can no longer be dualistically conceived.
bedroom
The forms and placement of windows embody the life relationship. To live this life of Wabi is to free oneself from the continuous enslavement to man’s material wants and comforts and to follow the very basic longing of going back to the simple and true, to be one with the universe while reflecting the timelessness of experiencing presence in space.
The layered tone on tone surfaces has a particularly rough, earthen texture with no visible attempt to compensate for unevenness in the handicraft technique.
The discrete glares of the light guide the curious mind to travel around space and discover a place of comfort regarding its own needs without any concerted effort.
rooftop
The dwelling has been reduced to the barest essentials. Vacuum is all-potent because it grants infinity of use and freedom of movement, both spiritual and material. The spaces convey a feeling of belonging to presence, free from any ornament.
The reality of the rooms is its void.
The design approach focuses on 1 function per spatial identity, allowing a fluid flow to orchestrate stillness through space. Every transition is articulated by the Japanese concept of the “negative space” called “ma”.
It’s the space “in-between” where emptiness occurs to purify the awareness of the present moment.
Inspired by the archaic organization of a Japanese floorplan to optimize the spatial flow by integrating all storage within monolithic volumes around a secluded void as a manifestation that conceptual limitations such as space do not exist for the truly enlightened.
This Barreiro artist residence is secluded, boldly isolated from the outside world, a space free from any intrusion.
Seclusion in the building is essential to create a maximum atmosphere of introversion to travel inward and find deep recharge in a place called the “inner home”.
This sensuous space shaped by the irregularity and roughness of natural monochromatic materials suggests tranquility in all its humbleness and simpleness. It may also be conceived as a bold demonstration that form is neglected if the spirit behind the matter is to come to explore new ways of awakening the poetics of architectural silence.
It may also be conceived as a bold demonstration that form is neglected if the spirit behind the matter is to come to explore new ways of awakening the poetics of architectural silence. The patina of the space may convey the notion of something imperfect that engages the imagination to complete it. The experience of beauty is not passive beholding, but active partaking.
The original state of the building is on the right. The name Barreiro comes from old fishermen that exercised their craft in the Lisbons' bar waters and were therefore known by the name of Barreiros.
