The project consisted in a complete rehabilitation of a two-story 18th-century manor house in Caldelas, on the northern region of Portugal called Minho. The program for the work comprised on the alteration of the ground floor into two apartments for rent, area that had always served as storage for agricultural activity, and the rehabilitation of the upper floor, where the dwelling had always been, into a house that would allow the owner to enjoy that space as a holiday home at any time of the year.
The primitive house that still had many original elements, with its large dark wooden doors, with cast iron handles, framed in stone trims that supported the walls, or the wooden ceilings, was extensively studied. All the different relations between materials, how they behaved or interacted with each other were analyzed, so that the proposed intervention, which would have to be in depth, would eradicate the existing deficits and create a comfortable and modern house, always respecting the memory of what had always existed and should be preserved.
The large rooms of the house, of about 30m² each, were divided, the kitchen adapted to a new reality and new sanitary facilities were built, always in a rehabilitation logic that respected the pre-existence, filling the gaps with contemporary elements that completed the intervention in the best way possible.
The team tried to apply the most appropriate materials for the intervention, resorted to reuse of materials from other works of the same period to maintain consistency in the proposal, remade the ceilings in wood whenever possible, painting them white to bring greater lightness and amplitude, took advantage of doors and locks in a work of great research and care, always with the intention of presenting a contemporary solution, but at the same time respectful and conciliatory.
