Located in Gateira, Portugal, Casa na Galeria is a privately owned residence completed by Camarim Arquitectos in 2014. Surrounded by vineyards and olive trees, this hillside house is embedded into the rolling terrain of the Portuguese countryside. Named ‘casa na gateira’, the house has been designed for a British couple who wanted a second home that offered a respite from their hectic life in London.
This Hillside House has been designed for a couple who wanted a retreat away from their hectic city life
According to the architects: “The clients wanted their second home in the foothills of the Serra da Estrela mountain range to be spacious, peaceful, quiet, and open to the outdoors, with views of the dramatic landscape as well as the nearby vineyards, pines, and olive trees. The main challenge was to achieve a balance between nature, agriculture and traditional architecture. Every functional area is located on a different level and provides an optimum indoor-outdoor balance.
The patio between the living room and the master bedroom is also a passive thermal device: it creates a thermal differential between the swimming pool and the patio, which generates an ascending air flow across the house for cooling in spring and summer, and it allows intensive insulation of the most innermost point in the house in autumn and winter.
“Our strategy was to interfere as little as possible: one enters the house in the upper part of the plot, through a wall that evokes the region’s traditional slate buildings, and descends onto the house’s core — a social space split in two levels.” Consequently, the property adopts a low-profile, with three connected volumes built into the terrain. the home is accessed at the plot’s upper level, through a wall that evokes the region’s traditional slate buildings and descends towards the house’s core. [Photography by Nelson Garrido]
