AZO arquitectos stacks volumes of stone and glass to build its casa em nogueiró

casa em nogueiró, a stack of stone and glass blocks

this house by AZO arquitectos, dubbed casa em nogueiró, is located in portugal‘s northern city of braga. the three-story dwelling takes shape as a stack of monolithic volumes in concrete and glass which appear to float over its sloping site. 

the design team notes a curious aspect of this house, which involved the construction process. the team tells designboom: ‘during the excavation of the land, we found a considerable amount of granite rock composed of an interesting pictorial texture, which we decided to make it an integral part of the house. on the ground floor, the natural rock appears causing an unexpected natural scenario.’

images by nelson garrido | @ngphoto.com.pt

azo arquitectos in the hills of braga

AZO arquitectos (see more here) thoughtfully considers the orientation of its casa em nogueiró within its site. the programs are distributed throughout the house to best account for solar orientation and views over the city of braga below.

the structure is dominated by the careful integration of smoothy interconnected materials. the architects continue: ‘we use exposed concrete with natural wood formwork on the walls and ceilings and natural gray ataíja stone for the floors, giving the building a chromatic coherence. the connection of the three floors is made through a ladder in metal steps, fixed to the concrete wall.‘

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project info:

project title: casa em nogueiró

architecture: AZO arquitectos | @azoarquitetos

location: nogueiró, braga, portugal

project architect: mário sequeira
project team: pedro soares, jorge vilela, joão alves, luís sequeira
structural engineer: antónio pedro alves
project area: 460 square meters
completion: 2019
photography: nelson garrido | @ngphoto.com.pt