Portuguese abstractionism for a suburban scenario

Amid volumetric interlockings of pure forms and color blocks, a house designed by Fala atelier near Porto stands out like a mysterious abstract sculpture against a background in search of identity.

In the anonymous landscape of a neighbourhood in Gondomar, in the metropolitan area of Porto, the house designed by Fala atelier stands out like a sculpture that is both elementary and complex at the same time, recalling the geometric and chromatic compositions of Abstractism and Neoplasticism and their assemblage of essential shapes and playful colours, with no concessions to the informal. An expressive language that is rooted in the abstract universe of Kandinsky, with his experiments in free trajectories of straight lines and curvilinear forms, and the uncompromising orthogonality of Mondrian and early Van Doesburg (before the introduction of the execrated diagonal) at the same time.

The house appears from the outside as a mysterious volume that conceals its residential vocation, instilling in the observer the doubt that it might be an art gallery or a church.

Fala, House within three gestures, Gondomar, Portugal 2021. Photo Francisco Ascensão

The dwelling is the result of an elaborate series of intersections based on three essential compositional gestures: the orthogonal grid, the curved wall, and the sloping roof. The building adapts to the irregular shape of the plot by means of a rigorous orthogonal grid that marks the plan and that configures a clear distinction between the private space, composed of a rhythmic pattern of rooms that open onto the street in a regular sequence of openings, and the distributive and community space bordered by a curvilinear wall perforated by a single window. A sloping roof that lowers over the street, as if to protect domestic intimacy, and opens towards the interior of the lot on the communal spaces, acts as a unifying element on which some "exceptional" volumes stand out, such as the parallelepiped tower housing the laundry and the triangular pink chimney.

Fala, House within three gestures, Gondomar, Portugal 2021. Courtesy of Fala

Inside, the palette of materials is concise and neat, emphasising the effect of bare essentiality and diffuse luminosity that reverberates on the immaculate walls, wooden floors, and light concrete ceiling. Edges accentuated by strips of dark wood emphasise the interlocking of the surfaces, as of floating and intersecting planes, translating the two-dimensional configuration of the drawings reminiscent of a conceptual painting into the three-dimensionality of the living space.

Project:
House within three gestures
Project team:
Filipe Magalhães, Ana Luisa Soares, Ahmed Belkhodja, Lera Samovich, Ana Lima, Joana Sendas, João Carlos Lopes, Anna Murisasco, Carina Pannatier
Consultants:
Paulo Sousa (Engineering), Mp+Pf (Engineering), Mribeiro (Contractor)

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