Monte do Galeirão house

The quality of a house is not directly related to its size, and this project serves as proof that a small space can successfully respond to the various needs of a living space. This house is particularly special because its unique context presents qualities that are inseparable from its specific time and location. From the initial phase of the project, we were interested in the idea of preserving and converting this rural house back into a habitation. That desire only strengthened once we visited the site and observed how the volume, with its imposing chimney, fits into the property and relates to the context.

The structure is a typical rural house of the Alentejo coast with an elongated rectangular plan and a wood-fired oven attached to the exterior side. The fundamental starting point for the project is inspired by the descriptions of dwellings in the Grândola mountains found in the book Arquitectura Popular em Portugal. Typically, these houses have a single entrance leading to a main room that serves as the living area, dining room, and kitchen. The most important element of the house is the large Alentejo chimney, and the entire distribution of the interior zones was conditioned by the decision to keep it.