MF House

Portugal
CMF

The great challenge behind Casa MF was to adapt client’s wishes, whose main premise was that the house should be built in an "L" shape. Developing an original identity and finding an answer to this request, was the main inspiration for the approach adopted in an almost imperceptible way. Then the distribution of spaces, with clarity and rationality, without the morphological obviousness hidden in the tenuous movement of the elements that accompanies the two streets that flank the volumetry.
The main façades of this irregular monolith are made of exposed concrete with wooden formwork, composed by a succession of opaque, crude and hermetic volumes that close the house to the public exterior. For the interior of the lot, the volume is torn in order to enjoy the light and the garden, ensuring privacy facing the street.
The program of the house is distributed over a series of consecutive volumes, as in a game of embedded pieces, almost playful. Each of the volumes presents different functions, heights and depths creating a unique spatial dynamic, and emphasizing a new reading of an “L” shaped house. New visual relationships are created between the full and the empty, between the private, semi-private areas and the view of the central garden space where the pool is also located.
The project for a couple with two children is an ode to the resident's privacy. From the outside, the North side is obscure and closed: from the street it is only possible to identify two openings (one of them 5 meters high) to see the sky and the other from the bedrooms leading to the inner courtyard.

The main access to the house is marked by a cantilevered volume that levitates over the entrance, with an imposing ceiling height that prioritizes the volume of access vis-à-vis the entire monolith. This suspended block reinforces the idea of ​​antigravity which, following the rigid volumes, when actually entering the house, contrasts with a large plane of glass that subtly, lightly and balanced connects the outside with the view of the garden.

  • Project Year: 2015
  • Area: 540m2
  • Location: Paredes
  • Código: 15CMF
  • Coordinators:
  • Henrique Marques | Architect
  • Rui Dinis | Architect
  • Collaborators:
  • Marco Santos | Architect
  • Marta Silva | Architect
  • Tiago Maciel | Architect
  • Finance Director:
  • Carla Duarte | CFO
  • Engineer: Born Consulting
  • Photography: FG+SG