How to turn a confined single room urban dwelling into a house? With artistic dash and brave, imaginative ingenuity, of course. The answer to this question is introduced to us by the architects from URBAstudios. The modern-day reality of smaller and smaller living spaces, especially in cities, pushes the borders of the imagination and creativity of architects and designer’s worldwide – we have introduced to you some amazing and creative examples mainly from Asia, but this time the topic lead us to an XIXth century building in the historical center of the city of Porto, Portugal. So explore it with us.
Space is visually divided into two zones horizontally (the white and the green one) and two floors vertically expanding the space towards the pitched roof of the attic. The green zone includes the entrance of the apartment, the bathroom and the small kitchenette where the white “Estremoz” marble of the counter and a part of the wall stands out, adding personality to this area.
The white zone with its beautiful “Riga” wooden floor and elegant wooden lattice structures evokes homey and warm atmosphere. The visual artistry of the double volume image of a house with pitched roof hosts two sleeping areas (one below and one on the top). So here the architects enhanced the strong, universal and simple image that defined the concept and the whole strategy of areas organization and visually transformed the apartment into a “House”. This gives the small apartment high individuality and unmistakable character. And as the architects introduced this innovative artistic creation: a room that aimed to be an apartment and turned into a “House”. The fun and creative adventure of modern-day living arrangements compose the spirit of this place. Photography by João Morgado
