Minimalissimo

House in Fonte Boa

architecture

Stay up to date

The Minimalissimo newsletter is sponsored by aprile, the hanging chair.
It's also supported by AA FS and 29 others.
If you enjoy what we’re doing, consider joining this group.

House in Fonte Boa is a beautiful two-storey single family residence based on a small estate located in central Portugal’s Rabaçal valley. Bounded by mountains, a vineyard and olive trees, the property is located on the west side of the land to maximise the views of the surroundings, creating a fantastic relationship between the interior and exterior.

Reinterpreting the traditional single family housing typology, the architect João Mendes Ribeiro proposes a strong relationship between the building and the land on which it rises is solved through a series of platforms which follow a dual purpose. On the one hand, the house rises above the ground thanks to a half buried plinth and on the other, the platforms create a serial access to the house, passing through a set of different situations while getting inside.

All the interior spaces have a particular relationship with the outside, through a set of large openings or small windows that intensify, in very different ways, the connection that the house establishes with the landscape.

I love the sense of simplicity of this minimalist rural white house lying in the calmness of a green countryside.

Photography by Jose Campos.

In the shop