The house is located in Banzão - the northwestern base of Serra de Sintra - a picturesque place where many families spend their holidays, close to the beach, surrounded by pine trees and with the mountains always in the background, sometimes hidden by nature or clouds.

The client bought this single pitch roof house built in the late fifties and decided to renovate and to adapt it to his family’s needs - a place to relax from the city, where they could spend weekends and holidays. A family home to shelter future memories.

Part of the client’s brief was to make the most out of minimum interventions. Therefore, the design response was to propose a new roof - raising its height and extending the eaves to create a veranda. As well as a sheltered exterior area, this also allowed for a new floor inside.

The sheltered area works as a transition space between exterior and interior, a hybrid area which will define the principles of the layout. Three clear layers are created:
- The veranda, as the diluted definition of the front elevation.
- The internal social area, as a fluid high ceiling space interrupted either by big, glazed doors or by holes in the walls and ceilings.
-The private area, the mirror of the veranda but this time enclosed and protected


The whole social area is facing both the panoramic view of the Sintra mountain range and the sunrise which emerges upon the moorish castle on top of the mountain. It is for this reason that every room of the social internal area has got some cut out to let the warm afternoon light invade and warm the whole space.