Rose building by Aurora Arquitectos
Rose building stands on the riverside avenue of Vila Real de Santo António, Portugal, where Aurora Arquitectos reworks an old house into a layered interior narrative. Behind the rational facade, the project turns an eccentric private world into five independent apartments that preserve mosaics, murals, and carpentry while adding contemporary structure. Each new dwelling grows from the original rooms, so the building reads as one continuous story in five chapters.
Sun hits the pale rose facade before sliding into the deep interior, where patterned mosaics and carved doors catch the first light of the day. Inside, color and ornament gather around an old stone sink and a mermaid painted on a bathroom ceiling, turning the former single house into a sequence of vivid rooms.
This refurbishment in Vila Real de Santo António converts a heritage residence into five independent apartments led by Aurora Arquitectos. The architects treat the original exotic interior as the project’s anchor: preservation of mosaics, carpentry, and ceiling paintings sets the tone, while new work steps in as a clear contemporary layer. Each apartment responds to its position in the building and absorbs fragments of the old house, creating distinct atmospheres held together by a shared memory.
Layering Existing Ornament
The starting point is what was already there, from the mermaid ceiling to the big stone sink and the many patterned floor mosaics. Rather than stripping back, the architects keep these elements visible and give them room, letting new rooms wrap around them. Contemporary surfaces arrive with calmer colors and cleaner lines, so preserved details read as anchors instead of relics. Old textures stay legible, framed by more restrained finishes that underline their craft.
Five Apartments, Five Moods
Transforming a single house into five apartments opens the way for different readings of the same structure. Each level and orientation suggests a particular rhythm, so the layouts shift to catch light, views, and circulation in their own way. Color and materials change from one flat to the next, creating environments that draw from specific corners of the original interior. The result is a family of homes where no two sequences feel alike yet all share the same heritage frame.
Old Textures, New Elements
Preserved wooden doors with detailed panels sit beside new openings cut to serve the updated program. Junctions between original walls and new partitions are handled with care, so the meeting line reads as a deliberate edge rather than a scar. Contemporary fittings and added elements are pared back in shape and tone, allowing mosaics, carved wood, and painted ceilings to hold visual priority. Everyday routes through hall, kitchen, and bathroom pass close to these textures, keeping the building’s past in constant view.
Everyday Life In Color
Within the refurbished structure, color works as a quiet organizer for domestic life. Each apartment carries its own palette, calibrated to existing mosaics or a particular ceiling detail, so cooking, resting, and bathing take place against distinct chromatic backdrops. Simple furniture choices, specified with local collaborators, sit lightly against walls and floors and leave patterned surfaces unobstructed. Daily routines unfold around the mermaid mural, the stone basin, and the tiled floors, binding contemporary use to inherited character.
In the end, the rose facade on the riverside avenue continues to face the city with measured calm. Inside, the building now holds five lived-in narratives bound by shared ornament and careful preservation. Light moves across old mosaics and new walls alike, tying together an exotic interior that remains firmly rooted in its historic shell.
Photography by do mal o menos
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