Set among stone pines in Colares, overlooking vineyards and the slopes of the Sintra hills, the house is the transformation of an existing dwelling into a contemporary home, open to its garden and the surrounding landscape.

The project builds on the existing L-shaped volume, keeping and strengthening it as the organising principle. The two wings embrace a sheltered inner garden with a lawn and pool, and set up a clear relationship between building and landscape. Each wing has its own expression: one, finished in white render, holds the bedrooms and opens to the garden through large glazed openings; the other, clad in vertical natural timber boards, contains the social spaces. Both share a hipped ceramic-tile roof that anchors the house in the region's building tradition.

Where the two wings meet, a white cantilevered slab extends the house outward and marks the entrance. A circular oculus cut into the slab makes room for a young oak, which over time will become the heart of this threshold space. Along the garden façade, a pergola of white fins filters the light and casts shifting shadows across the timber deck, creating a covered veranda that works as a natural extension of the living room.

Inside, the roof is expressed at its full height. The exposed timber boarding and rafters give the social space a generous scale and a warm atmosphere, set against white walls and oak floors. Black steel and glass partitions enclose the kitchen, a dark and restrained volume, without breaking the visual continuity or the full reading of the gable. Sliding doors open the living room entirely onto the deck, dissolving the boundary between inside and outside.

The landscape follows the same restraint. The existing pines were kept, and the garden combines lawn, gravel, stepping-stone paths and low-maintenance Mediterranean planting. The pool, framed by timber decking and pale stone, faces the Colares vineyards and brings the landscape into the daily life of the house.