A House of Many Faces: Warehouse Transformation in Porto by Fala Atelier.

Photo by Rory Gardiner.

Photo by Rory Gardiner.

Photo by Rory Gardiner.

Photo by Francisco Ascensao.

Fala Atelier has a delightfully distinct design language honed from a creative flair for problem-solving. For their latest project in Porto, the studio got to flex this muscle, transforming a uniquely slender plot and spacious warehouse into a home for one fearless client.

The building’s conventional and dull facade gives way to a series of cluttered rooms split over two levels, matched only with an incongruously vast backspace with a gable roof supported by heavy wooden beams. With the soon-to-be living room able to easily accommodate a dozen parked cars, the glaringly obvious elephant in the room was the size, not unnoticed by the Fala trio, acknowledging “an oversized house is barely a house”. So they got to work, trying to make an unlikely space into a home.

The solution is simple, yet elegant. Fala conceived the project as a series of cuts across the lengthy perimeter. Five facets are reassessed and introduced to order the extensive space and the two original parts are separated via an inner courtyard. A series of small apartments now front the building dividing the space with a number of slight gestures.

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Yet it’s the warehouse that takes the cake, which has been turned into one massive living room, interrupted only by a single curved wall. A kitchen and monumental fireplace act as familiar landmarks, placating domesticity.

A series of recurring motifs bind the space together; pairs of windows, yellow doors, green shutters and glass brick walls. As well as familiar Fala hallmarks from a crescent moon door, stepped cabinetry and a conical-shaped kitchen exhaust. Now a house, and one with many faces, the project has a freedom to it, born out of Fala’s unique experimental style.

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Design sketch by Fala Atelier.

Photos by Francisco Ascensao.

[Images courtesy of Fala Atelier. Photography by Rory Gardiner, Francisco Ascensao, Giulietta Margot & Matilde Viegas.]