This project is about the reconstruction of a ruin build of granite stone, its relationship to the landscape and a glass house that not only houses plants but also acts as a spatial counterpart to the otherwise solid stone building.
Three rooms of the former farm house will be used as enclosed and warm spaces while the remaining four rooms are turned into outdoor rooms that confuse the boundary between landscape and
interior and become spaces for improvisation.
Based in the north of Portugal, close to the Atlantic Ocean, the buildings are exposed to humidity and moderate temperatures. The granite walls are founded directly on the earth and assembled as dry construction.
Instead of adding layers of insulation, cavities, plastics and membranes, the project explores a form of reconstruction that maintains the simplicity of the monolithic wall by the means of an active insulation. Copper pipes, embedded in the exterior walls, heat these permanently throughout the colder periods and thereby break capillary action, control humidity and the temperature inside through radiant heat.
