Casa nas Alcachofras is located in Cascais.

The site, a very long and narrow plot, was an urban void in the middle of a dense street of disorderly atypical houses.

The morphology of the plot requires a solution exposed in an uninteresting site. In this way, we divided the land into two exterior parts: the entrance to continue the level of the street, and the backyard that develops a more intimate patio. Both have gardens that invoke distinct geographies. The entrance garden promotes a different environment, to create a statute of choice in view of the surroundings without interest, using shade plants such as palm trees, pteridophytes, shrubs and herbs. The backyard garden develops on a slope to provide the necessary light for the basement and is punctuated by a tree to ensure a more intimate environment. The volume of the building connects the two parts.

The plot has the regulate measures and space gaps that define the building's implantation. This consists of a recessed ground floor that includes all the social areas of the house, namely the entrance hall, the living room, and the dining room with direct relation with the kitchen to the East.

The living room, oriented to the South, has a double height that gives dimension to this space, both for the domestic experience and for the visual relation with the outside. Opposite to the kitchen, there is a room with a bathroom suitable for use by disable people. Downstairs are the games room, laundry, and technical spaces.

On the upper floor there are three bedrooms, connected by a corridor, like a gallery torn by a continuous span that cuts the landscape and allows a distant glimpse of Serra de Sintra. The windows are only made to direct the views, drawing pictures that seem to belong to the house, which can be seen from the living room.

In fact, the reduced width of the building (5m) and the weak surrounding environment dictate the game of volumetric advances and setbacks, as well as the opening of windows.

These glazing allows to free the social area of the house, introducing a transverse transparency that accentuates the interior / exterior relationship, whether in the physical appropriation of the exterior space as a visual extension to the south swimming pool and surrounding peripheral gardens.

Casa nas Alcachofras expresses lines and plans that dematerialize the volume, whose materiality and sober colors are close to the distant landscape. Casa nas Alcachofras does not intend to fit into the disordered environment that surrounds it, being thought of as a topographic and landscape element of the plot.