Vagos, Portugal
Frari – architecture network, led by the Portuguese architect Maria Fradinho, and landscape architect Arthur Pereira has designed House 109, which receives its name from its location, near an artery known as the 109 national highway, as it passes through the Portuguese city of Vagos, in the district of Aveiro, Portugal.
The project has been awarded a 2023 Future House Award by Global Design News and The Chicago Athenaeum Museum for Architecture and Design.
House 109 is a residence that was raised taking into account the proximity to the busy highway, the project carries out a self-protection approach with a uniform body and with almost complete closure, in the access area.
The study intended to give a critical response to also provide these lands with decent housing.
The construction rises with a concave shape towards the interior of the plot which opens with a large green space and leisure area.
The house is made up of two floors, on the ground floor we find the kitchen and the living room, from which you can see a panoramic view of the large garden.
On the second floor are the private areas with the bedrooms.
The house was built in such a way that great importance is given to the exterior areas, thus providing the house with great light in all its parts.
The façade highlights the structure of the house, and the walls and large windows are distinguished thanks to the contrast between white and black, which in turn allows for a balance to lighten the large dimensions.
House 109 has the main facade perpendicular to the layout of the road, contrasting with the pre-existing reality.
Thus, the front facade becomes blind, with a green space of transition and protection being created between it and the road – a barrier that protects the house from environmental and sound pollution created by the referred artery and, at the same time, grants the necessary privacy to the house.
The moment of entry, done discreetly through the north side, is celebrated by the great contemplation to the south thanks to the east-to-west windows that embrace the southern facade of the building, which is oriented perpendicularly to the confining artery.
This way, the architectural piece, admittedly horizontal, ensures a side external space that follows the main façade.
This space ensures a wide width able to meet the requirements that are imposed, working as a green area for leisure.
All compartments are turning to this important external space, ignoring all other possible spaces that are never as favorable in terms of the natural light that they provide.
The building, with its curved shape, ensures adequate protection from the wind on the porch while certifying a greater depth of the external space on the house axis.
All rooms look out over the external space through the porch, on the ground floor, or a joint balcony, on the top floor – elements that provide a uniform façade and allow for the volume to extend beyond its limits, always homogeneously.
This horizontal facade, just as the plan sets out, allows the upper body of the house to rise and stand out, through the retreat of the ground limits, composed by Corten colored walls that, together with big windows, are distinguished from the unavoidable white body of the upper part of the building, in a game where structural balance and materiality mix to lighten up a volume with great dimensions.
The simple and solid piece intends to position itself as a critical response to interventions in lands neighboring national roads, solving the problem of not being able to benefit from the external spaces and dictating the missing rule that enables these roads to have respectable habitability.
Project: House 109
Architects: Frari – architecture network
Lead Architect: Maria Fradinho
Landscape Architects: Jardins e Exteriores-Arthur Pereira
MEP Engineering: Pedro Tavares-Engenharia de Projectos and Coordenação de Segurança e Direcção de Obras Lda.
Client: Private
Photographers: Ivo Tavares Studio