Casa e Escritório Álvares Cabral 44

It is not easy to write about one's own house, within which one's own atelier was designed. This was a personal process marked by hesitations, additions, and subtractions, in the search for coherence, but also the difference between the two functions.

The house, a two-fronted building typical of bourgeois Porto from the early 20th century (1903), already possessed ornamental richness - including portals, baseboards, friezes, and stuccoes - which were important to recover in some notable points. Thus, on the noble floors, the project assumed the condition of a restoration, only punctuated by small design updates.

For the installation of the atelier, the basement floor was utilized, which establishes a level relationship with the rear yard. On this floor, a contemporary design was chosen that unifies the two existing fronts - one where the entrance and meeting room are located, and the other, facing the garden, where the worktables are arranged.

The entire atelier is covered with movable white panels - doors, cabinets, benches, trapdoors - crowned by an indirect light cornice that bathes the beams and the pre-existing texts, also whitewashed. This creates a uniform luminosity necessary for the workspace, in contrast to the variation of tones and shadows that mark the daily life of the house.