October 11, 2024

Casa no Campo by PFArchStudio Offers Harmonious Country Living

Designed in 2023 by PFArchStudio, Casa no Campo is a house located in Porto, Portugal. With a focus on unpretentious and harmonious living, the design emphasizes a strong connection with the exterior and respects the site’s agricultural surroundings. The minimal use of materials and carefully planned orientation create a space defined by light and shadows, offering a seamless blend of modern and traditional elements for a family of four plus two.

Sleek, modern architecture with glass walls, pool, and lush greenery surrounding the home.

The municipality of Esposende is located on the north coast of Portugal. Land of sea, river and mountains has been occupied for over 300 thousand years, and it combines ecosystems and landscapes under the same common denominator, the north wind or as it is known here “Nortada”.

Casa no Campo is located in the agricultural parish of Gandra and intended to be a home for a family of four plus two that wanted to escape the city life.

Modern, open-concept living room with large windows, wooden floors, and mid-century furnishings.

The plot, with a North/South orientation, is located in a predominantly agricultural territory, corn fields that change from green to golden and where more or less vernacular farmers’ houses flourish.

The client desired an easy, unpretentious house that responded to the imaginary country experience, with a strong relationship with the exterior, which would age well and respectes the site.

Spacious living room with large windows, modern ceiling fan, and sleek furniture.

The references are clear and assumed, Inger and Johannes’s house Exner, the of Aalto´s Louis Carré house, Corrales y Molezún´s Huarte and the unmissable Távora, with Ofir’s house just a stone’s throw away.

Essentially the roof defines the house. A ramp plan that protects the building from southern rains and draws an L that is actually a T shape, as it defends itself from the constant North wind.

Sleek modern home with floor-to-ceiling glass walls, open-concept living space, and pool.

Facing south and the street access, the social areas of the house welcome us, a first outdoor patio with a swimming pool, a covered porch, the entrance hall, the living room open to the South and West and the kitchen open to the south.

The private areas are located on the North side of the building, although they are mostly open to the West, where a more intimate portion of the garden that surrounds the entire house develops.

Taking advantage of the attic created by the inclined roof, the main suite of the house is created, which opens privately onto an outdoor patio split into the roof.

Minimalist open-plan kitchen with wooden cabinets, shelves, and round dining table.

Learning from the vernacular architecture of the region, the house opens to the south without exposing itself too much. It protects itself from the fierce summer sun, but allows it to enter during the coldest months of the year.

With the desire to live in the countryside came a desire for communion with the environment, to which the house should not be alienated, so the choice of materials used followed this desire.

The entire building has a minimal use of materials. The exterior is lined with manual brick, European Oak is the only wood used and the exterior concrete slab flooring is produced in the region.

Spacious, contemporary kitchen with wooden cabinets, stone countertops, and integrated appliances.

Having no ambition to make the house a statement of any kind, we do not escape the fact that all formal and constructive options are based on lessons of empirical knowledge and respect for the environment that thousands of years of vernacular construction have to teach us.

Everything else is done by light and shadows, and by the experience and the free appropriation of a family that wants to be happy.