Function: Housing
Location: Prado, Melgaço (Portugal)
Year: 2014
Area: 220m²
Clients: Sílvia & Álvaro (private)
Architecture: Nuno Travasso & Pedro Geraldes, with Sofia Granjo and Margarida Leitão.
Structures: NCREP
Electricity and telecommunications: J. Granjo

Sometimes, everything has to change so that everything stays the same.

Vila Isolina belongs to the family for many years. It needed a new life: new colors, more light, and more fluidity. However, its character, its personality, and its memories could not be changed.

Today, looking at the house, it seems that it was always like this. And yet, the structures of the roof, porches, and ceilings were renovated; windows frames were repaired, a small room disappeared so that the living room and the kitchen could be enlarged and interconnected; a bathroom was redesigned and other was created, along with new stairs and a kitchenette.

Lots of things have been reused: the kitchen sliding door is the old living room entrance door; the tub is the original, but now freed from the existing nasty brick walls; the old bathroom tiles allowed us to extend the kitchen floor; kitchen marble sink and work top came from another house where they were not wanted.

Furniture is not our choice. It is mainly the furniture already existing in the house, complemented with IKEA and second-hand pieces found online. We’ve loved it!

Thank you Sílvia and Álvaro.

Photos: Alexandre Delmar