House Renovation in Ovar, Portugal by Nelson Resende.

Having recently acquired the property on Rua Dr José Falcão in Ovar, Portugal, the client commissioned Nelson Resende to transform the entire house, inside and out, in order to maximise their home’s full potential.

Having studied the existing conditions in great detail, the architect had no trouble concluding which existing elements had to say, which ones needed to be enhanced, and which ones could be removed.

The house is located on the main street of Ovar, supported by two existing elevations that set the tone from the outside, while the inside, despite its grand proportion, becomes less formal.

The plan places the social spaces and those of greater permanence, such as the kitchen, into the central volume of the house. Existing room layouts are maintained, with new functions accommodated to work with existing walls. The secondary volume accommodates the garage that faces the interior of the street. Finally, the new outbuilding at the back accommodates all the support spaces, such as the laundry and a small storeroom.

The attic floor becomes the main volume of the house, with Nelson Resende designing this rooms as a multipurpose space. This room appears almost generic in use, despite the introduction of a new vertical access, a new toilet housed in a blue box, and natural light arriving via the three windows.

Existing materials were kept throughout as much as possible while ensuring the newly built elements did not create significant visual disturbances within the interior.

The most substantially visible intervention in this project are facade elevations, which allow an almost complete opening of the garage onto the street, and conversely, a more controlled opening of the two bedrooms to the rear of the building. With both elevations practically redone, Nelson Resende adopted the principle of respecting the existing building scale and its decorative elements, such as the wall tiles, the scale of which was reinterpreted through a modern screen design.