pinheiros bravos

José Neves

house of the wild pines, 2014-2022

Site: a small plateau on a heavily creased ridge line which visually dominates the landscape of Melides Mountain, in Alentejo, Portugal.

Program: a single open space designed for living, working, reading, playing, dancing, cooking and eating.

Client likes: exposed concrete.

Organisation: The house is located on this small plateau and is organised into three parts:

The wall, 35m long, 0.25m thick and 4.2m high, folded and rigorously cut out in places, shelters the inner life of this house.

sketch: atelier josé neves

1. A 35-metre wall, 0.25m thick and 4.20m high, folded and punctured by well-placed openings, forms a kind of fortress which provides the entrance to the house, and contains the bathrooms, ample storage and three bedrooms designed as alcoves, each connected to an intimate courtyard.

2. A low pavilion-like volume contains the living room, slightly sunken in relation to the surrounding ground level and opened to the landscape in a panoramic view of 180 degrees.

3. A narrow volume connecting the bedrooms and the living room, contains the space for cooking and dining – the heart of the house.

The entrance to the house presents itself as a fortress wall, behind which are the bathrooms, storage and three bedrooms, each connected to an intimate courtyard. Passing laterally through the house one finds the living room with a near unobstructed view of the open landscape.

photography: Daniel Malhão

The living room is like a blanket that rests on the floor in a carefully chosen place to have a picnic, looking out at the landscape.

The edges of the walls of the corridor (left) that crosses the house from end to end, patio to patio, are rounded, with no visible door trims.

Materials: The outer walls are pigmented exposed concrete. Interior walls are either covered with lacquered wood (corridor, rooms and closets), with handmade tiles (bathrooms), or with exposed French oak (alcoves) as a kind of comfortable jacket lining. The walls of the patios are covered with painted plaster up to the ceiling height of the interior spaces. The roof is a garden terrace; together with the climbing vegetation planted along the walls of the patios, its seasonal changes and growth delicately mark the passing of time.

Construction sample of the pigmented concrete compared with local stone and a piece of grey plain concrete. The pigmented concrete is compared with the trunk of a cork oak.

atelier José Neves

Place: Porches control the solar incidence during the summer, while extending the living room to the surrounding garden, protected from the predominantly northeast winds given the orientation of the living room.

A branch of the cork oak leans over the wall into one of the bedroom patios.

bedrooms (right) are designed as alcoves, like cozy hammocks that stretch between trees to sleep in the shade.

photography: Daniel Malhão

Design Team

Architecture: José Neves

Collaborators: Fernando Freire, André Matos, José Tavares, André Martins (project phase); Diogo Amaro, Inês Oliveira, João Tereso, Carlos Almada (construction phase); João Pernão, Maria Capelo (colour consultants)

Contractor: Matriz - Sociedade de Construções, Lda.

Photography: Daniel Malhão

JOSÉ NEVES opened his office, Gabinete de Arquitectura, in 1991. Teaching since 1988, he is currently in the Department of Architecture and Urbanism of ISCTE.