The project “Casa na Praça Mouzinho de Albuquerque” represents the materialization of an exercise of spatial organization within an urban plot with a complex configuration. The location of the building – in one of the main squares in the historic center of Braga, in Portugal – determined the option to preserve the existing volume and façades, and also some characteristic elements inside.
The intervention focused on accommodating a family program properly adjusted to the spatial needs and facilities that are currently required, finding in the existing volumetry a reason (not a condition) for the distribution and design of the spaces.
The narrowing of the lot on the back facade was one of the biggest challenges in terms of spatial distribution, since it was tried in the interior not to lose the original amplitude of some spaces – namely the room – neither the prevalence and location of the original kitchen. The use of the roof slope – especially in the children’s rooms – allowed to reduce the pressure of the required area for the remaining compartments of the house.
At the back of the plot, a new construction appears that frees itself from the formal and plastic language of the existing one, simultaneously assuming a gesture of rupture and continuity with the existing building, by extending the material of the floor and the back facade. The house results from this transition between spaces and the continuity between the pre-existence and the new constructions.