Pereiro do Chã

The house stands at the end of a dirt road in a rural landscape of open hills and cork oaks, ten kilometres from the ocean. In the middle of this wild terrain, the Swiss design team set a platform holding a garden with a pavilion-like house within it.

Walls of different heights surround the platform and protect life on it, while also shaping how the landscape is seen from inside. Through the entrance gate, blue quartzite glows beneath the deep water of the pool. From the room with a concrete sofa, the only opening to the north frames the lit garden, the pool and the wild land beyond.

There is no internal corridor: the rooms are connected by the paths of the garden. Everything is arranged so the interiors stay shaded in the hot summer while the low winter sun reaches deep into the rooms.