(Overview)
How a family of five, a pine forest and the Atlantic light shaped a single, cantilevered house that opens completely in summer and closes gently for winter.
Client
The Ribeiro family
Location
Comporta, Portugal
Year
2024
Duration
22 months
Budget
€1.2M
Services
Architecture · Interiors · Landscape
02
Our approach
We lifted one long volume onto a local limestone plinth, gave it a deep cantilevered roof and pocket-sliding glass walls. Every room faces south; services sit along a thick north wall that stores heat.
03
The outcome
A calm, low house that uses 60% less energy than a regional new-build, needs no air-conditioning and has become the family’s year-round home rather than a holiday house.
Before
After
First sketches on site, March 2021
1:50 study model of the roof
The plinth and frame, autumn 2022
Joinery details for the sliding screens
Drag or scroll sideways →
(05) — Results
−60%
Energy vs. regional average
0
Air-conditioning units
22
Months, sketch to keys
420 m²
Gross floor area
(06) — The full story
Casa Alvor
A house for five seasons on the Comporta coast
Listening first
Our first three visits to the site involved no drawings at all. We walked the plot at dawn and dusk, noted where the wind came from and where the family naturally stopped to look at the view. Those pauses became the rooms.
The brief evolved from “a holiday house” to “the house we will grow old in” — which changed everything about materials, accessibility and durability.
One long gesture
The house is a single volume, 48 metres long, resting on a limestone plinth quarried 40 kilometres away. Its roof cantilevers four metres to the south, shading the glass in summer while letting low winter sun deep into the plan.
Materials that age well
Lime plaster, European oak and bronze were chosen because they improve with time. Nothing in the house is painted except the lime walls, which the family re-wash every few years themselves.
They listened for months before drawing a single line. Four years on, the house still surprises us — the way the light finds the kitchen at seven every morning.
Helena & Tomás Ribeiro
(07) — Book a consultation
Imagining something similar? Let’s meet.
Book a free 45-minute consultation with a founding partner — at our Lisbon or Porto studio, on your site, or by video call.
45 minutes, free of charge
Always with a founding partner
Confirmed within one working day
Book your consultation
We’ll confirm your slot by email within one working day.
Next case study →
Casa do Claustro
Reopening a sixteenth-century cloister to the city