The architecture studio, Fala Atelier, has completed the renovation of an old building made up of three apartments, now converted into a single home baptized as the "House with pink chimneys", whose main element, and organizer of the spaces, is a staircase meandering. The building is located in a dense area of the city of Porto.

The building grows on a very narrow plot where the new white volume is enveloped by two overlapping patterns of marble lines and dots, which extend along the blind party wall, creating the image of an atypical volume that is crowned by three striking pink chimneys and a blue band.
The rooms of the four-story building, designed by Fala Atelier, take on complex shapes, interrupted by oblique walls, stepped surfaces, different materials and sloping ceilings with finishes in different colors and textures.

Inside, the spaces and their environments are not defined by partitions made with walls. Each corner, each room, each opening or stop in the movement of its occupants is defined by a wide variety of different finished materials, exposed concrete slabs, stripped wooden floors, layers of blue, abundance of tiles and terrazzo, handrails completed with occasional pieces of marble and semicircular mirrors.


Housing with Pink Chimneys by Fala Atelier. Photograph by Francisco Ascensão.
 

Project description by Fala Atelier

The empty plot is small, limited and somewhat sad. The same could be said about the regulations applicable. The entire volume of the building is predefined—a slightly skewed box of four levels with a setback at the top. In an arrogant move, the project tries to be ambitious, overly complex and joyful.

It begins with the staircase that avoids doing the obvious thing. While leading upstairs, it nudges and reshapes the three apartments it serves. These interior spaces result from a multitude of uncanny intersections between the meandering staircase and the available square meters. Rooms take on intricate forms, disrupted by slanted walls, stepped surfaces, and tilted ceilings, all systematically painted in blue.


Housing with Pink Chimneys by Fala Atelier. Photograph by Francisco Ascensão.

The material palette is concise yet full of character. Each surface is differentiated according to the project’s logic: exposed concrete ceilings, stripped wooden floors, coats of blue, abundance of tiles and terrazzo, unsafe handrails for the circulation’s spaces, completed by occasional pieces of marble and flirty mirrors.

Outside, the cheeky white volume is wrapped in two overlapping patterns of marble lines and dots. The pattern extends the long blind wall, producing a complete volume that is not typical in a dense urban setting. A vertical row of identical square windows punctuates the narrow elevations, leaning towards the edge of the building, where the wall thickness is disguised with mirrors. Three pink chimneys and the blue band crown the small urban piece.

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Architects
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Project team
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Filipe Magalhães, Ana Luisa Soares, Ahmed Belkhodja, Lera Samovich, Ana Lima, Joana Sendas, João Carlos Lopes, Sajoua Eta, Jana Von Wyl.
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Collaborators
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Engineering.- Paulo Sousa, MP+PF.
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Area
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240 sqm.
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Dates
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2022.
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Location
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Porto, Portugal.
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Photography
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Francisco Ascensão, Rory Gardiner, Giulietta Margot, Lera Samovich.
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Fala Atelier is a naïve architecture practice based in Porto, led by Filipe Magalhães, Ana Luisa Soares and Ahmed Belkhodja. Established in 2013, the atelier works with methodic optimism on a wide range of projects, from territories to birdhouses.

Filipe Magalhães (Porto, 1987) graduated in architecture at faculdade de arquitectura do Porto and Fakulteta za Arhitekturo in Ljubljana; wrote the thesis ‘between the abstract and the figurative’. Worked with Harry Gugger in Basel and Aanaa in Tokyo. Visiting professor at Bratislava’s faculty of architecture.

Ana Luisa Soares (Porto, 1988) graduated in architecture at faculdade de arquitectura do Porto and Tokyo university; wrote the thesis ‘The matter of ideas’. Worked with Harry Gugger in Basel and Toyo Ito in Tokyo. Visiting professor at Bratislava’s faculty of architecture.

Ahmed Belkhodja (Lausanne, 1990) graduated in architecture at ETH Zurich after having also studied in Lausanne, Gothenburg and Singapore; worked with Harry Gugger in Basel, Obra architects in New York, and Atelier Bow-wow in Tokyo.
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