DL House is a project for an artist’s house in a building from the early 20th century in the historical centre of Porto.
As in any intervention in a place like this, the following questions are a must: What to keep from what exists? What to make disappear? To reinterpret what is old with modern techniques and materials? Minimal intervention with the utmost respect to what it is or what it was? Or maybe a completely radical new formal and material approach…
The answer of Urbastudios is very clear, making distinction between the outside that dialogues with the context and the interior that is more independent. In the façade, DL House recovers the image and original qualities changing the carpentries of aluminium for a wood ones and restoring the typical tile coating.
Inside DL House, the solution is more radical. The poor state and the scarcity of value of what exists added to that the programmatic demands clashed with the current spatial configuration, led to a complete reset to begin practically from zero.
The program included housing, study and space for the great production of the artist. The architect proposes a completely open space, except for the bedroom, embracing all the different uses with a marked vertical axis.
Two elements help to understand the DL House’s space both by its formal weight and its materiality: the staircase and The Shelf
The shelf, which occupies all the height, articulates all the rooms, both in the vertical principal axis and horizontally in each floor. Depending on the activity done on the floors, the central element turns into storage, kitchen, bookshelves, internal separation…
The studio and storage are situated on the two first floors (ground floor and mezzanine). The neutrality and simplicity of the design allow the client to use it in different ways. This characteristic is applicable to all DL House. The third floor contains a small hall, the kitchen and living room with a view to the street. On the top floor, a multipurpose room is located, coming out from both sides to the lower floor.
Both in the organizational and intermediate scales, until the structural detail scale, simplicity and minimalism are the maximum. Nothing is fanciful in DL House. Each movement is adjusted to a purely functional concept.
Images provided by Urbastudios.
Photography by João Morgado.
