Brejos da Carregueira House is a modern holiday home in Portugal, designed by Estúdio AMATAM for two French families.

Description
Developing a house for two families challenged us to develop a spatial and programmatic concept that reflects this specificity. This house is meant to be an escape from stress and urban living for two families that want to have holidays together. We sought to understand what the qualities of a vacation home could be and we focused on some characteristics that seemed essential to us: an inner spatial organization that allowed a strong coexistence among its users in a double-high ceiling living room, very close relations between the social area of the house and its exterior, a clear separation from the private areas and an atmosphere that revived the morphology of traditional Portuguese houses in the countryside. Having these in mind, our proposal has resulted in an unusual dialogue between the modern and the traditional. In the exterior we tried to develop a language that is markedly contemporary, with pure and simple forms, exploring the relationship between two rectangular volumes with distinct shapes. These modern volumes, however, conceal an interior that exploits a spatiality that takes advantage of the two-story roofs, so characteristic of traditional country houses. However, despite a modern but elegant language, we have provided the exterior with materials that also explore the more artisan side of the ...