House within Three Gestures

The corner suburban plot called for a single-level house. Its misshapen outline dictated offsets and alignments, a row of bedrooms suggested a grid, and private and public had to be separated. From these, the Portuguese design team tilted the roof, curved the perimeter wall and broke the main division: the house plays out in three gestures.

Secondary spaces fit behind a stepped line, producing exceptions, while a laundry room leaves the perimeter and becomes a tower. The volume combines a tilted half circle and a slender spire, painted white, black and blue so that surfaces of the same colour never meet, and a pink triangular chimney lands on the sloping roof.

The street side shows an even row of openings for the rooms behind, and the curve is broken only once for a living-room window. Inside, white walls run between wooden floors and concrete ceilings, with dark wood strips on key edges.