Portuguese practice Spaceworkers was commissioned to build a house with "a lot of space for books", in Paredes, a municipality east of the city of Porto, Portugal, formed in 2013 by the merger of the former parishes Castelões de Cepeda, Mouriz, Vila Cova de Carros, Madalena, Besteiros, Gondalães and Bitarães.
Spaceworkers designed a dense, heavy, monolithic cover roof that needed to be subverted, giving an idea of levitating mass that is slightly lying on light wood and glass. The roof seems to crush the users, reminding them of their own scale as humans and the ancestral importance of the shelter.

The time - important architectural component - is also an essential agent of the composition. The built elements - specially in concrete - seek to register the passage of time through it formwork texture.

This formwork, similar to the roof variations, assumes ups and downs, protrusions and recesses, allowing it to keep the time with the representation of the shadows during the different hours of the day, giving also a dramatic appearance to the facades.
 

Project description by Spaceworkers

A house for books. This challenge started with a premise from the client: space for many books.

Immediately, our imaginary guided us to the many classical renaissance libraries, with sliding stairs that reach the book mountain. That was the motto of the intervention: a high space capable of generate the composition and hierarchize interior spaces.

The ideia was growing and the volumetric experience led to the functional differentiation of the interior spaces, crating a roof as a restless mass with different heights. The roof also figures itself in a fifth facade and influences the idealization of the other ones.

Suddenly we had created a dense, heavy, monolithic cover roof that needed to be subverted, giving an idea of levitating mass that is slightly lying on light wood and glass. The roof seems to crush the users, reminding them of their own scale as humans and the ancestral importance of the shelter.

The time - important architectural component - is also an essential agent of the composition. The built elements - specially in concrete - seek to register the passage of time through it formwork texture. This formwork, similar to the roof variations, assumes ups and downs, protrusions and recesses, allowing it to keep the time with the representation of the shadows during the different hours of the day, giving also a dramatic appearance to the facades.

As the time passes the textured concrete will naturally age and will be more integrated in the rural surroundings. The same will happen to the wood base, which the older it gets the more magnificence will become, enriching the house.

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Architects
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Spaceworkers. Lead architects.- Henrique Marques, Rui Dinis.
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Project Team
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Marco Santos, Marta Silva, Mónica Pacheco, Tiago Maciel.
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Collaborators
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Furniture Design.- Bairro Design. Finance Director.- Carla Duarte - cfo. Engineer.- Simetria Vertical.
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Area
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365.0m²
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Dates
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2014-2018
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Photography
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spaceworkers is an architecture and design studio located in Paredes in northern Portugal, founded by the current creative directors Henrique Marques and Rui Dinis and by its financial director Carla Duarte.

spaceworkers® were nominated in 2013 for the Great Indoors Award with the Information Center Of the Rota do Românico, project which in 2014 received a special honorable mention from the Architizer online platform on within the scope of its international architectural award A+ Awards.

In 2015, with the project Casa de Sambade the office won the Building of the Year Award 2015 promoted by the site Archdaily and with the same project also won the A + Awards 2015 in the category Private Houses XL Popular Choice promoted by the platform Architizer. In the same year the office integrated the Architects' Di- rectory promoted by the international magazine Wallpaper *, that every year selects the emerging architects around the world. In 2017, with the Cabo de Vila house, they won the Archdaily Building of the Year Award 2017.
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Published on: April 7, 2020
Cite: "Space for many books. Agrela House by spaceworkers" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/space-many-books-agrela-house-spaceworkers> ISSN 1139-6415
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