Casa do Parque IV in Santo Tirso
Casa do Parque IV reworks a long-neglected house in Santo Tirso, Portugal, into a confident urban home. Led by Ricardo Azevedo Arquitecto, the project navigates memory, cost, and present-day life without surrendering the building’s character. The result reads as a grounded renovation with a modern spirit, crafted for someone who searched for years to find a place worth keeping—and transforming.
Morning light slides across old walls and new surfaces, marking a house that’s no longer stalled. A careful retrofit turns a fading structure into a place built for daily life, not a relic behind glass.
This is a house in Santo Tirso, Portugal, reworked by Ricardo Azevedo Arquitecto in 2022. The brief holds three tight threads—heritage, cost, and a present-tense way of living—and ties them into one coherent response. It’s an urban renovation with a modern temper, grounded in what was found and what was needed.
The building sits between eras. A resident with a long-held wish for character and uniqueness meets an architect ready to preserve what matters and rethink what doesn’t. Budget guardrails guide every move, yet the outcome prioritizes comfort, clarity, and a confident use of light.
Repair the Shell
Work begins by stabilizing the structure and restoring safety, returning basic integrity to a house that had slipped into partial disrepair. Old envelopes are retained where sound, while compromised parts are rebuilt to carry the renewed load and protect the interior from future wear. The goal is simple. Keep the recognizable bones, remedy the weak points, and set a reliable frame for contemporary living without theatrical gestures.
Thread Light Through
Carefully located openings draw daylight deep inside, turning circulation and rooms into a sequence of bright pauses and quieter pockets. These apertures do more than brighten; they choreograph the day—morning to afternoon, task to rest—while opening measured views to the exterior. Shadows do the rest. By shaping light rather than flooding everything, the house gains rhythm, relief, and a calm register for daily routines.
Balance Cost And Craft
Constraints sharpen the solution, not the other way around. Each intervention earns its place by solving a problem and pulling double duty, whether improving comfort, extending longevity, or clarifying circulation. Materials converse rather than compete. Where existing surfaces carry history, they stay; where performance matters, new work arrives with straightforward finishes and honest junctions, keeping maintenance clear and the budget in check.
Link Inside And Out
The renovation treats the boundary between interior and exterior as a hinge, not a line, encouraging movement and easy use throughout the day. Openings align with living areas to invite breezes and soften thresholds, making the garden and street part of the house’s daily register (without theatrical transparency). It feels lived, not staged. The resident’s routines sketch across rooms that now accept both solitude and company with equal ease.
Keep Memory Close
Heritage informs decisions without dictating them, allowing modern clarity to sit alongside the building’s enduring traces. New elements step back where memory holds weight, then step forward where use and safety demand better performance. The house gains coherence. What began as a search for character ends as a measured renewal that honors the found story and writes a new one on top.
Evening returns the rooms to warm tone and quiet outline. Light softens, surfaces cool, and the renovated shell settles into the neighborhood with steady confidence. Nothing shouts—there’s just the ease of a place repaired, ready to be used well.
Photography courtesy of Ricardo Azevedo Arquitecto
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