Some houses are made to be looked at, others to be lived in, others again to be walked on.
Once a farmhouse, tucked into rural Algarve (Southern Portugal) and surrounded by the luscious vegetation of a natural reserve, is now a conceptual space tuned in with the land topography and flooded with light and air.
Studio Name: Marlene Uldschmidt Architects
Design Team: Marlene Uldschmidt, Mauricia Bento, Ana Filipa Santos.
Area: 250 mq.
Year: 2015
Location: Alcantarilha, Faro – Portugal
Photography Credits: Fernando Guerra
Other Credits: Antonella Antonucci
Roof therapy should be the next trend, crossing spacial boundaries is liberating, empowering, and challenging.
This’s probably why the roof of Casa Vale do Margem is walkable.
The entire house is about movement.
Stepping from one room to another is an escalation of geometrical perfection, the additional wing gave sinuosity to the structure and a long external retaining wall marked the transition between the land and the building.
Large glazed sliding elements connect the fluid open-plan interior with the contrastingly rugged external areas and natural locally sourced materials have been used to build the retaining wall and the floors.
The priority of the studio intervention was to harmoniously integrate the building with the surrounding open countryside, a sea of almond trees under a cloudless sky, preserving the space and enhancing the blessed natural setup was the winning combination of this ambitious project.
STUDIO
Authentic, meaningful, respectful, always considerate.
Marlene Uldschmidt Studio was born in 2005 as the artistic outlet of German architect Marlene Uldschmidt, whose fiercely creative independence needed a space where she could have the freedom to create without compromise for her clientele, whose dreams she carves out of raw materials with rigour and honesty.
Based in Portugal, in the small village of Ferragudo in the Algarve, Marlene Uldschmidt Studio believes in a rigorous process that starts with drawing inspiration from the place, the clients, the story we are called to tell and the land we are honoured to build upon, and proceed through innovatively classic design, careful selection of textures and materials to dress the space and exceptional craftsmanship to realise the interiors.
At the Studio, we absorb the sense of place, interpret the idea our client envisages and work with and around what’s available to achieve the desired results. We sculpt an atmosphere out of space and gift our clients with the confidence to trust that’s all possible, that in us they have found a competent and professional partner they can rely on.
Our greatest satisfaction is to identify the best possible solution to a given challenge. The task is to find that solution. That is what our Studio feeds on and gets inspired by.
Every project is treated as unique and displays a clear signature mark, without being mere replicas of an adopted model.
At the Studio, we always start with a blank piece of paper and carve each project’s idea out of the void space that hosts endless possibilities.
