Agrela House | Spaceworkers

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Agrela House | Spaceworkers

Information

  • Completion year: 2018
  • Gross Built up Area: 365 sqm
  • Project Location: Agrela
  • Country: Portugal
  • Lead Architects/Designer: Henrique Marques, Rui Dinis
  • Design Team: Marco Santos, Marta Silva, Mónica Pacheco, Tiago Maciel
  • Engineering: Simetria Vertical
  • Photo Credits: FG+SG
  • Others: Author: spaceworkers, Furniture Design: Bairro Design, Finance Director: Carla Duarte – cfo, Engineering: Simetria Vertical
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Excerpt: Agrela House, designed by Spaceworkers, has a motto to create a high space capable of generating composition and hierarchizing interior spaces. The idea was growing and the volumetric experience led to the functional differentiation of the interior spaces, creating a roof as a restless mass with different heights. The time – important architectural component – is also an essential agent of the composition. The built elements – specially in concrete – seek to register the passage of time through its formwork texture.

Project Description

[Text as submitted by architect] A house for books. This challenge started with a premise from the client: space for many books. Immediately, our imaginary guided us to the many classical renaissance libraries, with sliding stairs that reach the book mountain. That was the motto of the intervention: a high space capable of generate the composition and hierarchize interior spaces.

Agrela House | Spaceworkers
© Spaceworkers
Agrela House | Spaceworkers
© Spaceworkers
Agrela House | Spaceworkers
© Spaceworkers

The idea was growing and the volumetric experience led to the functional differentiation of the interior spaces, creating a roof as a restless mass with different heights. The roof also figures itself in a fifth facade and influences the idealization of the other ones. Suddenly we had created a dense, heavy, monolithic cover roof that needed to be subverted, giving an idea of levitating mass that is slightly lying on light wood and glass. The roof seems to crush the users, reminding them of their own scale as humans and the ancestral importance of the shelter.

Agrela House | Spaceworkers
© FG+SG
Agrela House | Spaceworkers
© FG+SG

The time – important architectural component – is also an essential agent of the composition. The built elements – specially in concrete – seek to register the passage of time through its formwork texture. This formwork, similar to the roof variations, assumes ups and downs, protrusions and recesses, allowing it to keep the time with the representation of the shadows during the different hours of the day, giving also a dramatic appearance to the facades. As the time passes the textured concrete will naturally age and will be more integrated in the rural surroundings. The same will happen to the wood base, which the older it gets the more magnificence will become, enriching the house.

Agrela House | Spaceworkers
© FG+SG
Agrela House | Spaceworkers
© FG+SG
Agrela House | Spaceworkers
© FG+SG

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