Buganvílias

BUGANVÍLIAS Porto, Portugal Buganvílias Houses is a row housing project consisting of five houses, integrated into a lot designed by the office more than a decade ago. This lot included, in the first instance, “Japoneiras” and “Sobreiros” Houses and is now completed with the construction of the “Oliveiras” and “Buganvílias” Houses. It is not possible to explain the Buganvílias Houses without mentioning the Japoneiras project, designed about 10 years before for the same client, exactly with the same program. Now, a decade after Japoneiras Houses’ commercial success, the client asks for a new block of houses, to be constructed beside the existing one. The challenge was to – in a module with exactly the same width and implantation area – answer the same brief from the same client, making the same program, in the same place, with the same price and destined to the same end customer, only 10 years later. Technology and constructive systems had evolved, regulations and laws had changed, and the way of dwelling had transformed itself. Facing new challenges, revisiting the houses for the second time around was necessarily different. Subtle changes have been implemented that completely transformed the houses. A direct link was created between the kitchen and the living room – without having to walk down the hall – supported by a scullery. Following the new housing trends, the kitchen is not just a “food laboratory” but also a socializing space, through the introduction of a central island. This was made possible by a new stairwell arrangement, which also allowed to resolve more effectively the elevator implementation. The exteriors were also reinvented and now assume a fundamental role in the project, being not only spaces of use but also visual dampers. The shared access path is now richer and more private. The walls and blades grow in relation to the Japoneiras Houses and become screens that form patios in front of the houses. On the other hand, the vegetation to be implemented is simultaneously a synonym of beauty and intimacy, covering the large glass door at the entrance of the house. Pivoting, the door acts as a frame of nature, when closed, and fully opens to allow a symbiosis between the kitchen and the garden. The facade becomes more profuse than in the previous model: balconies, cantilevered and recessed bodies provide the houses with three-dimensionality and rhythm. The various plans and perspectives lend a great plastic richness and complex spatial characteristics to the building. There is no perfect definition of the boundary between interior and exterior: the houses are enlarged and visually extended to the next block. As so, Buganvílias display a set of characteristics that make them truly exquisite. First of all, the functionality factor, which is the basis of the whole block. A house is meant to be lived in and, as we see it, in residential architecture, functional issues cannot be overlooked in the pursuit of aesthetic ideals. The introduction of new elements and materials in relation to the previous model always had to do with the improvement of a certain solution, the central concern being to offer the client five comfortable and robust houses, whose beauty stands the test of time. Simultaneously, the project represents a subtle homage to the architecture of the city where it is located: Porto. Buganvílias Houses use the modularity concept of the unmistakable typical houses of downtown Porto – in which all the modules have the same width – taking it further: the flat, cut facades cease to be thin skins and become profound three-dimensional volumes embedding rhythm and personality into the houses. The beauty of this project reaches its peak in the conceptualization of a daily life phenomenon that happens all over the world: the appropriation of a building by its residents. By transforming into an intellectual object the way in which, in a building, each household adapts its exterior areas to its own personality, the appropriation is not only allowed but incentivized. This was made possible by the introduction of copper plated planters that encourage the residents to personalize their space in each floor through vegetation, without, however, creating disharmony with the rest of the houses. In addition to allowing, in a planned and controlled way, that the residents put their personality into the house’s facade, the vegetation sweetens their relation with architecture, softening the impact of the artificial object. Used as form of expression – a living material – green assumes a variety of functions and is closely linked to the notions of sustainable architecture that were at the heart of the project. Through technology – which includes home automation and solar panels – and the encouragement of the creation and maintenance of green areas and the preservation of nature, sustainability is one of the pivotal characteristics of Buganvílias Houses. Finally, representing an improved model of the Japoneiras Houses, exactly for the same client and in the same place, 10 years later, Buganvílias Houses symbolize the reinvention of an architect in the same program. Side by side with Japoneiras, past and future, Buganvílias prove that architecture is a dynamic art and science that lives to and based on the world around it and that, for the same brief, it is possible to reinvent and perfect ourselves infinite times.