Excerpt: IMLA House by Luppa Architects is a renovation project that aims to increase the house’s gross area with a two-story extension on the west façade. The new volume, located from the house’s south limit, creates an indoor patio that allows for direct exposure to south and west sunlight. The new volume detaches from the old building’s perimeter, allowing each interior space to enjoy direct exterior sunlight.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] The IMLA House is located in Porto in Bairro da Vilarinha, a neighbourhood built during the last stage of economic housing neighbourhoods developed by the regime of Estado Novo in 1958. The neighbourhood is mainly composed of small semi-attached houses and since the IMLA house is the last house of the street, right in the corner between two streets, it has a bigger garden.
The first step of this project was changing the entrance of the house to another street, to ensure that the entrance was no longer made through the garden. The garden is now located in a more isolated area and it has therefore increased usage and more privacy.
In order to address the need for a higher gross area, the designers created an extension of the house in a two stories volume on the west façade of the house. This volume distances from the south limit of the house creating an indoor patio that promotes the entrance of south and west sunlight.
As to formal aspects of this project, it had as a premise that the new volume would not change the original features of the old house and was assumed as a new volume. The idea was that one could still read the perimeter of the old building, by detaching the new volume in the transition between both of them and through the new windows. Each interior space can now have direct exterior sunlight.
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