Moradia do Retiro by Ricardo Azevedo Arquitecto
Moradia do Retiro is a house in Santo Tirso, Portugal, designed by Ricardo Azevedo Arquitecto. The project works within an existing structure, preserving granite walls and a sloped tile roof while opening the domestic realm to a private exterior. It balances the client’s wish to keep the building’s character with the comforts of a contemporary home, drawing a clear line between what endures and what’s renewed.
Light slides across whitewashed stone, catching the rough grain of old granite and the shadow under a clay tile eave. A quiet threshold leads from the village street to rooms that open toward a private exterior, held close yet protected from view.
This is a house in Santo Tirso by Ricardo Azevedo Arquitecto. The work stays inside the contours of an earlier dwelling, pairing thick masonry and sloping tile planes with re-scaled rooms and a contemporary daily rhythm. The priority is firm: preserve the shell, recalibrate what happens within, and keep the home outwardly modest while inwardly clear.
Keep What Holds
Granite walls carry the memory of the place, their depth tempering light and lending a steady cadence to openings. Roof planes remain pitched and clay-tiled, repeating a familiar silhouette against the sky while tightening the building’s weathering logic. Window apertures and frames are replicated with care, so proportions read continuous even as the rooms behind them shift to new uses. It feels grounded. The envelope stays legible and strong.
Re-Scale the Interior
Inside, volumes are edited and expanded to suit present life, trading cramped sequences for cleaner lines of movement and daylight. Re-scaled rooms set up a measured flow from entry to living to the private exterior, with views pulled long but sightlines controlled from the street. Daily use drives the plan, not nostalgia, yet the old bones remain the guide for spans, thresholds, and pause points. The rooms breathe, and routines simplify.
Open To Privacy
The house turns decisively toward its private exterior—visible from within, screened to the public realm. Glazed moments choreograph light without surrendering discretion, creating an everyday stage for eating, reading, and resting (windows become tools as much as views). The result is a domestic microcosm that feels outward-looking and protected at once, a balance held by the thickness of the walls and the calibration of each aperture. Life unfolds behind a measured veil.
Modern Comforts, Quietly
New finishes and fittings land with restraint, so contemporary comfort sits inside the heritage envelope without noise. Objects are chosen rather than accumulated, each setting a small tempo change that humanizes the rooms and supports daily rituals. The construction reads solid, efficient, and rational, yet never cold, because touch points—frames, thresholds, handrails—acknowledge the hand. Modernity enters softly. The old and the new keep terms.
Resolve The Doubt
Every adaptive project carries a moment of doubt, the pause before a family accepts a renewed home as their own. Here the resolution comes by honoring what was right in the first place and by editing only where life demanded change. The house now holds past, present, and future in one clear conversation—walls steady, rooms refreshed, and a private world just beyond the glass. Nothing shouts; everything works.
Evening returns the tile roof to silhouette and pools warm light on the granite reveals. The building reads calm from the street, and generous from within. Time will test the balance, but the craft and restraint feel built to last.
Photography by Ivo Tavares Studio
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