​Project name: Villa na Foz
Year: 2017
Collaborators : Jana Císařová, Pablo Hernandez Esteban, Yashwin Dev, Anca Budau
Model making: Yashwin Dev
Photography: Pavan SuryaTeja,

This is the project for the extension of a XVI century house in the "Foz Velha" in Porto. Even being a ruin, the existing building has the value of antiquity. Apparently there is no trace of such a distant time to the neighbours’ buildings, but the spirit of a different era of humankind seems to be present. The building appears to be closed in itself. Our project is therefore based on the purpose of maintaining the medieval character of the exterior shape. Solid appearance, closed to the exterior.
This premise gave rise to an expansion in height, an extension of an indented floor in order to keep intact the original walls. The west wall, which is very present in our proposal, has a material constitution considered contemporary to the Castle of Foz and that’s why the house is classified as a heritage building. 
To take advantage of the new construction’s indentation, the main façade located in east side, has a generous terrace accessible by the main suite. 
The rehabilitation and expansion that we intended to do has the main purpose of providing better conditions of salubrity and habitability of the building.
In this way, we tried to adapt the medieval house to the modern lifestyle and to the clients’ specific ways of living. For this, we conceived more comfortable and ventilated spaces with natural light, taking into account the program requested by the client: a house with two bedrooms and a small office.
For maintaining the medieval character of the building, we have opted to use traditional and characteristic materials of this type of construction, such as wooden window frames, a ceramic roof with eaves and traditional finishes and a granite coated platband in the main façade, which relates to its original period and at the same time, its colour creates a direct dialog with the roof.