The Aldeia House was conceived as an attempt to converge into a single house the sometimesantagonistic demands of two people.
The couple brought to the design process their concerns and expectations regarding their considerablechange, not only a residential one, but also a lifestyle shift. The couple’s dificult choice to leave behind their urban lifestyle in exchange for arural daily life has been fundamental to the definition of the architectural concept that deviated from the archetype of the countryside houseto bring small doses of urbanity into the house’s routine.
This attainment was possible by accessing some of the couple’s affective memories, aPortuguese and a Brazilian who lived for years in Portugal and stablished their roots in the European country.
The house references thePortuguese historical villages (aldeias) that, even in mainly rural contexts, are able to stablish a kind of urban proximity between theirbuildings, to integrate them with the landscape and to softly adjust uneven terrains and accesses. By doing this, the Aldeia House creates smallspaces of varied characteristics in a human scale and at the same time punctuates the landscape as a constructed intervention with diversityin its formal unit.
In this building with modest budget and dimensions (143 sq m), visual and circulation permeability are determinant for the spaces’ quality, but instead ofbeing completely open to the impressive landscape of the Botucatu’s cuesta, all doors and windows were carefully dimensioned andpositioned.
The intention was to allow, in one hand, the sunlight control and, on the other, daily and punctual discoveries of the outer space byframing the landscape, encouraging people to fully enjoy the external areas like the central patio, the dry garden of pebbles and the woodendeck.
We have asked the couple that inhabits the Aldeia House to write about their experience and discoveries: from the project to the constructionand, finally, to everyday life. The text goes below.
‘It started like this:"What do we want? We want a view, we want fresh air, we want a backyard, we want plenty of space for the dogs and toread our newspaper in the sunlight".
We have been architecting it for a few months... A couple is made up of two individuals. Each of us dreamed of a house. Dreams inevitably conflicted. But, little by little, we found our common roots. Our house has gained a name, Aldeia House. The name was given by the AUÁarchitects and we soon adopted it because that was what we wanted!
The construction: "brick by brick in a magic drawing", "they raised a house, where before there was only ground". Time went on and the housegrew, literally, physically, concretely. It was a delicate, laborious, dense and very rewarding process.
And finally, the time to dwell, to occupy, to sleep in our Aldeia has come! It's interesting too... everything is ready, it's inhabitable and it took usa few weeks for us to assimilate the new space and for the new space to assimilate us. And this experience and it discoveries are so good. Alight that appears there, at that specific time, and we did not know yet.
Our House Is Our Village, with light, with nature, with a common dream. We thank AUÁ architects and the guys from the construction site thathelped us to have "our countryhouse / in the ideal size / where we can plant our friends / our records and books / and nothing else!’
Material Used:
1. Oficina 7 Netos – demolition wooden doors, shelves, floor details and deck
2. Marcenaria Jeremias – naval plywood doors and windows
3. Botuloc Pinturas - painting
4. Atak Serralheria – metal gates
5. João de Barro – ceramic bricks
6. Levino Ambrósio and construction team – wall’s cement coating and polished concrete flooring
7. Cerâmica Strufaldi – ceramic tiles – Iberica Line
