Local architect Paulo Merlini has completed a house in the Portuguese city of Gondomar featuring three gabled volumes and a roof garden set on top of a ground-floor structure formed of thick stone walls.
Casa Rio was designed by Paulo Merlini's studio for a site previously occupied by a farmhouse in the city to the east of Porto.
Top: the home features three gabled volumes on top of a concrete plinth. Above: thick stone walls surround the ground floor of the home
The project began with the demolition of the original building, which revealed that the house had been constructed in an ad-hoc manner to meet the owner's requirements.
"By disassembling the poor materials of the old facade we discovered that the house was actually made up of three small houses built according to the needs of the former owner," the architects explained. Stone was chosen to reflect the regions vernacular buildings
The new building is based on the arrangement of the original house, with three separate volumes that are unified by situating them on top of a large concrete slab.
The house is configured around a central courtyard that punches through the concrete slab to allow daylight to reach the surrounding ground-floor living areas.
A courtyard punctuates the centre of the home
The first-floor bedrooms and study look out onto a roof garden incorporating paving slabs that lead around the central void to connect the different spaces.
The building's ground floor features thick stone walls tha...