arquitectura-G converts portuguese town building into

‘tenant house’ by Arquitectura-G

Arquitectura-G has completed Tenant House, the first in a row of buildings to be transformed along the perimeter of the Quinta da Ponte estate in Sintra, Portugal. This series of townhouses, highly characteristic of the area, features sunken ground floor spaces with several small shops lining the main façade that looks onto a narrow street.

The aim of this project was to invert the building’s original function both in terms of the interior space and its relation with the exterior without disturbing the row’s uniformity. Prior to intervening, the building’s upper floor, which could not be accessed from the one below, was a single-floor apartment mostly cut off from the estate. Wanting to resolve that disconnect, the studio recalibrated the spatial dynamics by converting the main façade to the rear one, opening up the Tenant House to the estate, both visually and functionally.

all images © Maxime Delvaux

opening up the building to the estate

The upper floor of the renovated building has four large window bays, two of which also reach down to the ground floor, forming two patios. ‘This means that the bedrooms can be moved downstairs, along with the wet rooms; thus, the main upper floor, which is now completely freed up, becomes a large shared space connected to the estate. In turn, it is presided over by a staircase crowned by the kitchen that articulates the space,’ writes the Arquitectura-G team.

The resulting all-white, modern interior — infused with concrete strokes — is complemented by echoes of ‘rustic’ textures that nod to the building’s time-marked quality and traditional architecture.

Arquitectura-G completes ‘Tenant House’ as the transformation of one building from a row