An introspective view. Forte House by pema studio
12/02/2023.
[Santo Tirso] Portugal
metalocus, ANTONIO CORREDERA
metalocus, ANTONIO CORREDERA
Architecture practice pema studio, led by Tiago Pedrosa Martins was commissioned to design a house in Santo Tirso, a city and municipality located in the north of the Porto metropolitan area, which grew a lot during the 90s, now, the population is 67,000, 25 km from central Porto, Portugal.
The region of the Ave Valley has a large centre of the textile industry and has interesting architectural projects such as the International Contemporary Sculpture Museum (MIEC) and the renovation of the Municipal Museum Abade Pedrosa (MMAP), designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto de Moura.
The region of the Ave Valley has a large centre of the textile industry and has interesting architectural projects such as the International Contemporary Sculpture Museum (MIEC) and the renovation of the Municipal Museum Abade Pedrosa (MMAP), designed by Álvaro Siza Vieira and Eduardo Souto de Moura.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Site plan. Forte House by pema studio.
Diagram. Forte House by pema studio.
Ground floor plan. Forte House by pema studio.
First floor plan. Forte House by pema studio.
Sections. Forte House by pema studio.
Diagram. Forte House by pema studio.
The design of pema studio's Forte House was based on the idea of a sheltered fortress, actually, a look inside, to ward off the speculative development of nearby large housing blocks. The house establishes an interesting relationship with natural light and intimate spaces. A whitewashed house occupying the remains of an old derelict existing house.
The proposal makes an intelligent commitment to the reinterpretation of the patios and corridors, separating from the main preserved façade, creating an entrance patio partially covered by a roof and reconfiguring between the stone perimeter walls that surround the plot, intermediate spaces that generate fresh. in summer, they allow better light control and are linked to the morphologies of houses on the Iberian Peninsula.
The house is organized longitudinally thanks to two corridors. One interior and one exterior give access to the public spaces of the house, a living room, kitchen and dining room that open to the rear of the house. Also through two stairs, you can access from the inside and outside two bedrooms located on the upper floor.
The proposal makes an intelligent commitment to the reinterpretation of the patios and corridors, separating from the main preserved façade, creating an entrance patio partially covered by a roof and reconfiguring between the stone perimeter walls that surround the plot, intermediate spaces that generate fresh. in summer, they allow better light control and are linked to the morphologies of houses on the Iberian Peninsula.
The house is organized longitudinally thanks to two corridors. One interior and one exterior give access to the public spaces of the house, a living room, kitchen and dining room that open to the rear of the house. Also through two stairs, you can access from the inside and outside two bedrooms located on the upper floor.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Project description by Tiago Pedrosa Martins
A well-established urban residential area in the city of Santo Tirso - The intervention is inevitably a reflex response to this complex and challenging context. The urban plot, is confined between neighbours whose visible confrontations had little or nothing significant from the landscape point of view.
The pre-existence, heavily degraded and with little constructive value, lived in the typical and uninteresting duality between the street and the back courtyard. Moving away from this typology represents an attitude that is both logical and challenging, but above all, necessary and effective.
The intervention starts from a massive block that, impertinently, detaches from the limits and mimics the land plot outline. From here, by subtraction, the voids are defined, and the program is intuitively accommodated between patios in a constant refusal of a direct relationship with the exterior perimeter.
The house is designed in a complex balance between the creation of a dense and closed fortress and the reinterpretation of the typical patio house, looking for a protected oasis, in its intimate relationship with the sky. The name - Forte - denounces the mandatory theme of privacy, while the volumetric design reveals the essential strategy of capturing light and ventilation for the space, in an unpretentious and assumed inspiration in the Islamic culture.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
Forte House by pema studio. Photograph by Ivo Tavares.
The old facade, an identity element of the pre-existence, is one of the few remaining elements of the old set. With the necessary functional changes, it was restored and rehabilitated as an element of cohesion and framing with the adjacent urban fabric, reducing the intervention urban impact on the street.
The clients, and friends, were looking, on a plot with clear limitations of space and privacy, for a house that was at the same time, extremely pragmatic and flexible, but also sensitive and surprising. The answer, matured in an intense way, has a character strongly linked to the resolution of the challenge, without ever letting go of its personality and desire to create emotive spaces and moments, being the light, as manipulated matter, the main protagonist of these moments.
There are spaces that cannot be explained by words, they are felt. Absurd functionalism and easy fashion, tend, little by little, to asphyxiate the sentiment in architecture. Hopefully not here, at Forte.
More information
Architects
pema studio. Architect.- Tiago Pedrosa Martins.
Project team
Daniel Carvalho (Livre Atelier) and Dário Cunha.
Collaborators
Engineering.- M2 – Gabinete de Estudos.
Builder
Construções Alves e Freitas, Lda.
Area
GFA.- 280m².
Dates
Terminación.- 2022.
Location
Santo Tirso, Portugal.
Photography
Tiago Pedrosa Martins. pema studio
pema studio is an architecture estableshed in Santo Tirso, Portugal in 2019 and led by Tiago Pedrosa Martins.
Tiago Pedrosa Martins (Born in Bad Urach, Germany, 1992). Move to Portugal 2007-2010. Sciences and Technologies - E.S.D. Afonso Henriques, Vila das Aves 2010-2015. Master in Architecture - Escola de Arquitectura UM, Guimarães 2015. Erasmus+ Exchange Program - Università degli Studi di Ferrara, Italy 2016-2019. Architect at 3r Ernesto Pereira, Vila do Conde 2019. Founds pema studio, Santo Tirso.
Tiago Pedrosa Martins (Born in Bad Urach, Germany, 1992). Move to Portugal 2007-2010. Sciences and Technologies - E.S.D. Afonso Henriques, Vila das Aves 2010-2015. Master in Architecture - Escola de Arquitectura UM, Guimarães 2015. Erasmus+ Exchange Program - Università degli Studi di Ferrara, Italy 2016-2019. Architect at 3r Ernesto Pereira, Vila do Conde 2019. Founds pema studio, Santo Tirso.
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