Set on the Atlantic rocky coast near Lagos in Portugal, Hidden House: Second Reading follows the natural topography of its site, translating its horizontal profile, coastal landscape and changing light into a restrained architectural composition. The project's predecessor Hidden House has received 16 international architecture awards, including Red Dot Award, THE PLAN Award and Architizer, among others, reflecting its international presence across prominent architecture and design platforms. The project's second reading has been shortlisted as a finalist for WAF 2026, with the winners to be announced following the live presentations in Miami this November and AMA Awards Gold winner.
Hidden House: Second Reading begins with a careful reading of the site. Set on the Atlantic rocky coast, the house responds to the natural topography of the land while meeting municipal requirements that keep it almost invisible from Lagos town below.
The proposal preserves the plateau’s horizontal profile and unspoilt character, allowing the geometry of the slope to continue uninterrupted across the site. The house settles into this landscape as a quiet extension of the terrain, with its external presence deliberately restrained and its interior shaped by a richer relationship with light, the ocean and the surrounding landscape.
Reading the landscape
The land establishes the primary architectural framework. The house follows the existing contours of the site, maintaining the continuity of the plateau and preserving its relationship with the coast, which makes it a signature style of the authors “Kerimov Architects”. The site's low horizontal presence allows the landscape to remain visually dominant, while the architecture is positioned within the slope with precision. This relationship between building and terrain continues throughout the composition.
The house unfolds as a series of individual volumes, each responding to a particular orientation, use and spatial condition. Together they form a unified architectural composition, while the spaces between them become courtyards, terraces and open-air passages. These intermediate spaces bring daylight, vegetation and views into the heart of the house, creating a sequence of thresholds between enclosed and open space.
The resulting architecture is experienced through movement across the site as much as through the rooms themselves. Landscape becomes part of the circulation, while each transition offers a different relationship with the horizon, the terrain and the changing conditions of the Atlantic coast.
Light becomes an equally important organising element. Its changing intensity and direction are registered differently across the individual volumes, courtyards and passages, producing a constantly shifting interior atmosphere. Natural materials reinforce this experience through their texture, weight and response to light.
Material expression of the coast
The material palette emerges directly from the character of the site. Pigmented architectural concrete takes its colour from the earth, while natural stone echoes the geological presence of the rocky coast. Timber recalls the surrounding woodland and introduces warmth into the otherwise mineral composition.
Marine-grade metal adds another layer to the material language. Its surface is designed to respond naturally to the salt-laden coastal air, allowing weathering to become part of the architecture’s evolving character. The materials are selected for their durability and resistance to the demanding marine environment, supporting a long-term approach in which the house can age naturally within its setting. Together, concrete, stone, timber and metal establish a tactile material palette rooted in the landscape. Their colours, textures and processes of weathering allow the architecture to develop a relationship with the site over time, connecting the physical character of the coast with the experience of inhabiting the house.
Landscape as an interior experience
The relationship between interior and exterior is developed through a continuous sequence of framed views, courtyards and open-air spaces. Each room is oriented towards a particular condition of the landscape, creating different ways of experiencing the ocean, the horizon, the vegetation and the changing light. The spaces between the individual volumes play an important role in this experience. They operate as extensions of the interior, creating places for pause, movement and gathering while maintaining a direct connection with the surrounding terrain. The result is a house in which inhabitation unfolds through a sequence of different spatial conditions rather than a single continuous interior.
This approach gives the landscape an active role in everyday life. Morning and evening light, changing weather, seasonal vegetation and the movement of the sea become essential part of the experience. Architecture provides the framework through which these conditions can be observed and inhabited.
Environmental performance
Environmental performance is integrated into the architectural concept through a combination of passive strategies and efficient building systems. The positioning of the volumes, their relationship to the terrain and the arrangement of courtyards contribute to the regulation of daylight, ventilation and thermal conditions.
The approach reduces energy demand and resource consumption while responding to the specific environmental conditions of the Atlantic coast. Material selection also forms part of this long-term strategy, with durable materials chosen for their ability to withstand salt, wind and changing weather conditions. The environmental logic extends beyond operational performance to the longevity of the architecture itself. By allowing materials to weather naturally and by working closely with the existing landscape, the house is conceived to remain closely connected to its setting throughout its life.
Hidden House therefore emerges from an architecture of close observation. The project gives form to the existing logic of the landscape, creating a home whose presence is measured through its relationship with the land, the ocean, light and time. Its architecture remains closely grounded in the character of the site, allowing the house to become part of an environment that continues to shape its experience long after construction.
