Vale da Castanheira House

In a beautiful, hidden and long-forgotten valley, between Penhas Douradas and the source of the Mondego River, a shepherds’ enclosure preserves the family memory that gave rise to this project. The house is shaped by the scale dictated by the schist volume and by the framed views reconstructed through memory: a walnut tree beside the stream; a snow-covered summit; the embrace of the pine forest lost to fire. The remoteness of the site and its harsh climate determine the materiality of the clear, rigorous volumes, built in concrete and steel upon a landscape defined by schist walls, contrasting with a warm interior of timber and granite.