Aurora Architects . Furo . photos: © do mal o menos
Rose building – the great exotic interior
This story begins with an old rose building on the riverside avenue of Vila Real de Santo António, a city located in the south of Portugal. The rose-house had a nice and rational facade, but the real treasure was inside. An exotic interior with details such as a mermaid painting in the ceiling of a bathroom, a multitude of patterned mosaics, detailed wooden doors and a big stone sink.
It was obvious from the beginning that we should keep and emphasize the exotic interior. The program asked for the transformation of the layout from a single house to a five apartments building and gave us the perfect reason to create five different environments that play with site-specific idiosyncrasies of each space. A selection of colors and materials, combined with extensive architecture details preservation and the introduction of new contemporary elements, allowed us to create five flats with distinctive personalities, where each one is contributing to a general set that pays homage to the exotic qualities that we found in the original building.
Mustard building – the interior serenity
The second chapter of the rose-house begins with the city code. The rules allow us to construct a new addition to the existent building on the back of the plot facing Princesa Street. Being Vila Real de Santo Antonio city center heritage protected, we had strict rules to follow: (1) all new buildings are obliged to have exactly 12m height; (2) to have a clear distinction between old buildings and new additions, the design façade should not be similar to Pombalino style – rectangular french windows organized in an orthogonal grid.
We took the challenge set by the regulations and we created a four-floor building divided in two to allow more light in the central patio. To improve the opportunities for social interaction and the common amenities of the residential complex, it was decided to use the last floor to locate a small swimming pool and a terrace for sunbathing.
For the facade, we designed a set of one pane sliding windows out of alignment. The dimension of the windows and the ability to disappear inside the walls can transform the living rooms almost into outdoor terraces making the most of the weather of this region.
For the interior, our option was to explore the opposite of the exotism of the existent building and design calm interiors similar in all the flats with wood and cream terrazzo. To this relaxing atmosphere, we added a bold element – an open partition of wood painted in a gradient of pink that organizes the social space of the flats and makes the chromatic connection with the beginning of this story: the rose building, that now is mustard-rose.
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PROJECT: Rose building and Mustard building
LOCATION: Vila Real de Santo António, Portugal
CLIENT: private
PROGRAM: refurbishment, extension and division in independent apartments of an heritage building
AREA: 678 m2
PROJECT STATUS: Built
DATE: 2018–2021
ARCHITECTURE: Aurora Architects + Furo
ARCHITECTURE TEAM: Sérgio Antunes, Sofia Reis Couto, Tânia Sousa, Carolina Rocha, Rui Baltazar, Ivo Lapa, Dora Jerbic, Anna Cavenago, Afonso Nunes, Kasia Cichecka + António Louro, José Castro Caldas, Paula Vargas
BUILDING SUPERVISION: Iperplano
CONSTRUCTION: Francisco Rodrigues – Cervimat
PHOTOGRAPHY: do mal o menos
FURNITURE: a Linha da Vizinha and Takt
