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Climbing plants will gradually cover the screen of iron bars that surrounds Nevogilde house in Porto, Portugal, which has been completed by local studio Anarchlab.
Located in the city’s Largo de Nevogilde neighbourhood, the home occupies the footprint of an old stone house overlooking a once-pedestrianised square, which is now a busy traffic junction.
To deal with this change in condition, Anarchlab turned the Nevogilde inwards, presenting a closed facade to the north and creating a fully-glazed, U-shaped ground floor to the south overlooking a large garden.
“The starting point was always the simplicity of the solution, the strong connection with the garden and wide and generous social areas for relaxing times with family and friends, all articulated with the pre-existence of an old stone house along a quiet square,” said the studio.
“Uncomfortable, noisy and cold windows to the north were closed and ceased to exist, [while] large continuous glass windows were created on the ground floor facing south, embracing the garden across its entire width,” added Anarchlab.
Inside, Nevogilde comprises a spacious living room on the ground floor that is connected to a kitchen and dining space, while six bedrooms are housed across the two floors above.
An exposed brick wall with a fireplace and concrete bench forms a backdrop to the living room and extends out into the garden through a full-height window.
The first-floor bedrooms, which sit on either side of a cut-out at the centre of the home that is planted with a tree, are set back slightly to create two external terraces.
These terraces are wrapped by the screen of ribbed iron bars, which are overlooked by the main bedroom on the second floor and will eventually be covered with climbing plants to help conceal the sleeping spaces.
“The main bedroom emerges from the facade as a glazed volume that floats over a private terrace, protected by a huge structure of delicate vertical lines of ribbed iron, which will serve as the basis for a vertical garden to develop across the south-facing facade,” explained the studio.
“This structure, supported by exposed concrete pillars, raw but delicate, will serve as a solar and privacy filter, mediating the close relationship with the garden below and with the sun, rain and wind to the south,” it continued.
While Nevogilde’s ground floor interiors are rougher and darker, the first floor has been given a minimal finish of white walls and pale wooden floors.
Other residential projects recently completed in Porto include a home by Tsou Architects organised around an exposed-concrete staircase and a “tiny palazzo” by Fala Atelier that sits at the end of a garden.
The photography is by Jose Campos.
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