VALERIO OLGIATI

The house is located in Alentejo, Portugal. It is 10 km away from the ocean. The area is known for its wide-open spaces and its rural landscape.

The house is set at the end of a dirt road, in between hills and surrounded bycork oaks.

In the middle of this wild, hilly landscape there is a platform and on it a garden with a pavilion like house in it. There are walls of different heights around the platform that protect the life on it. The setting of walls allows a differentiated spatial perception of the surrounding landscape.

Through the entrance gate, the blue quartzite shines through the deeper water surface of the pool. From the room with a concrete sofa there is the only opening towards north, which allows a view over the illuminated garden and the pool into the wild landscape.

There is no internal connecting corridor in the house itself. The garden's path system connects the rooms.

Everything is set so that there is enough shade inside the house during the hot summer and that the sun can shine deep into the rooms in the cooler winter.

source: Valerio Olgiati