MTMG House

A single-family house overlooking the city of Santo Tirso, from the northern bank of the Rio Ave.
The commission carried a certain ambition — both in the scope of the program and in the specificity of the interior areas. I recall some special requirements: an indoor swimming pool; a second floor dedicated to rest (with the sunrise oriented toward the Sanctuary of Nossa Senhora da Assunção); transparency — above all light — along with adjectives and formal or spatial qualifications that are not relevant here.
We were given a vast promontory of 13,750 m², roughly rectangular in shape. The former agricultural property lacked significant architectural marks. It was practically empty, except for a group of old and imposing oak trees at the southern end and a small ruin at the northwest corner. The granite blocks of the ruin — once the house of the land stewards — were structurally stable. We agreed they would be cleared of invasive species and left as they were, standing guard over the new entrance to the site.
The proposal occupies a footprint of 882 m² (including terrace areas).
The house stretches longitudinally along the western landscape, with 33 meters of frontage and 28 meters of depth.
Conceptually, we initially proposed a Roman house organized around an atrium, with its respective compluvium and impluvium. It was rejected. We kept the atrium and compluvium.
We laid a sheet of white cardboard over the site and began to crease, fold, cut, and observe the result. We repeatedly modeled and remade it, introducing variations to generate view corridors, shading, and shelter.
The “sheet of cardboard” extends over the bedroom volume, folds northward to create a blind façade, folds again horizontally to form the ground floor roof slab, and with two additional folds (and cuts) shapes the courtyards and the façade of the indoor pool.
The entrance to the house is located on the north side. The ground floor, with 590 m², accommodates the social, leisure, and service spaces (including parking for four cars and a guest bedroom). The upper floor covers 212 m², divided into three south-facing bedrooms connected to the roof terrace.
A central courtyard (atrium) was introduced to orient domestic spaces toward light, breeze, and family activity. The courtyard connects the kitchen, laundry room, garage, living room and corridors, guest bedroom, gym, and swimming pool.
Outdoors, the surrounding vegetation was restored to shelter the garden and cultivation areas, reintroducing plant species characteristic of the region.
From a constructive standpoint, the house consists of reinforced concrete slabs and walls, thermally insulated on the exterior with rock wool panels, finished with lime-based reinforced plaster, and lined internally with plasterboard walls and ceilings. The entire roof of the bedroom floor was fitted with photovoltaic panels for energy production.