Dr. Saraiva Lima House

The house is located in Alcácer do Sal, near the village of Santa Catarina. The sizeable property and the regularity of the landscape gives a sense of infinite territory. On part of this property there is a small hill. On this hilltop, between two splendid pine trees, there is this house, which looks out over the valley which spreads out elegantly to the north. In contrast, to the south, powerful cork trees can be found bunched up in a trench. The house springs up from a quadrilateral figure, as if another tree, forming a flat covering.

The house speaks and awakens, on the one hand peace and calm, on the other anxious and restless. A state of the mind awakens from its look, the rule of the vertical opening, which repeats itself and interrupts. The quadrangular form that rends gives room to the car park and to a flight of stairs. The house is encompassed by paved ways, which also leads to the swimming pool, withdrawn to the south. Between them there is a lawn. The alignment of vertical openings in the composition is suitable for visual passage and preserves transparency. The house consists of a living room, a recreational room, four bedrooms, a kitchen, bathrooms, technical areas and a storage room. The exploitation of the slope to the south has given way to an independent midstory which houses the recreational room, one of the bedrooms and a small bathroom.

Respect for the topography of the land, avoiding land drives so that the profile of the existing terrain and the project match. The proposal shapes up the slope to the southwest, minimizing the excavations. The building materials used were those available: for the structure, concrete, brick, plaster and tile; for painting the walls, lime; for the pathways, stone and terracotta tile paving; for the apertures, painted timber.