Casa árvore 1 / Casa muro 1, Lisbon
One Family; One Territory; Three Houses

The two houses proposed occupy an unexpected and impressive big walled garden, in the interior of a building block at Lisbon’s city centre. The houses aim to characterize this garden relating themselves distinctively with it, a pre-existent house takes up all the front lot.

The "Casa muro" bounds the garden west limit transforming it in an autonomous identity, at the same time as articulates itself with the pre-existent house creating a way and an arriving courtyard which functions as the core of these territory. We can think this house as doubled faced, from one side settles the arriving of walking people and from the other opens itself widely to the Garden ground, dialoguing with the wall that contain the garden and builds the house.

The "Casa árvore" stands up completely on top of pillars, above the highest point of the garden wall. The house volume shape designs a yard without a floor that gives a new core to the garden through its projected shadow. This house typology is made up with independent volumes linked together in a tight geometry, alloying passages between them without any interior door. This strategy regards the idea of a tree house and allows a more fluid circulation through space, while the house shadow’s massive impact on the garden becomes lighter.

In short, the "Casa muro" closes the garden designing its entrance and building its way, while it opens itself to the garden and organizes its interior spaces according to this openness.

The "Casa árvore" lives its idea at the tree tops height, building a new centrality that organizes the garden.