Casa Plaj by extrastudio
Casa Plaj plants a precise, contemporary house on a narrow, sloped plot in Lourinhã, Portugal, with the Atlantic just a short walk away. Designed by extrastudio, the coastal retreat organizes living on a single level while lifting it lightly above the land. The result is a holiday house with rural poise and a clear structural idea, tuned to wind, sun, and the long views that define this countryside.
Distant surf rides the wind while a long pool glints between pines. A compact volume hovers above the slope, its terraces projecting toward sea, valley, and village.
This is a house for holidays, set in the countryside and five minutes from the shore. Designed by extrastudio in Lourinhã, it treats structure as order and instrument, lifting rooms on a cruciform podium and tuning apertures to sun and view.
Set On A Podium
Four load-bearing walls carry a cruciform platform, so the ground flows beneath with only a single touch for entry. The house sits on this perch, and terraces cantilever in all directions to extend each room outward, creating private refuges that inhale the breeze and frame the horizon.
Cutting The Courtyard
From the solid mass, a void is carved to form an open-air courtyard entrance gated by a large sliding panel. Inside, the plan stays on one level: kitchen, dining, and living share a generous central room that opens symmetrically to the north, east, and west, while three bedrooms face south to catch warmth and long light.
Light As Structure
The interior is capped at 120m2 (1,292 sq ft), so height does the work of scale and grandeur. A big skylight crowns the living room, and a set of precisely placed oculi—laid out within the geometry using a 3D model—cuts daylight into deeper zones; for four months each year, a traveling beam visits every room before sunset, peaking at the solstices.
Openings In Motion
Windows pocket fully into thick walls, changing the house into an alfresco pavilion at will. Everyday rituals shift outdoors, and even bathing can move into open air without breaking the plan’s calm order.
Monochrome And Tactile
Construction welcomed time and chance, leaving the grey plaster bare for a monochrome interior that throws shadows into relief. New portholes and niches punctuate the walls, a stairwell door became red glass, and slabs of silver travertine and bluish-green marble key against the muted surfaces while the exterior—first intended grey—took on color.
Landscape Held Lightly
Beyond the podium, a long pool runs parallel to the sea among wild pines. The ground was barely touched; existing trees remain, and a grid of fruit trees steps down the slope to keep the land’s agricultural rhythm intact.
Late day brings quiet, and the terraces catch soft wind and salt. At night, only waves, far voices, and unseen birds carry through the valley, marking a house tuned to structure, light, and the land beneath it.
Photography by Clemens Poloczek
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