Location: Porto, Portugal.

Architect: Ventura + Partners.

Buganvílias Houses is a row housing project consisting of five houses in Porto, Portugal. The project was designed by the same office that designed the Japoneiras project for the same client, with the same program, in the same place, and for the same end customer, only 10 years later. The challenge was to answer the same brief with the same price, but with new technology, constructive systems, regulations, and laws. The houses were transformed with subtle changes, such as creating a direct link between the kitchen and the living room, introducing a central island, and resolving the elevator implementation. The exteriors were also reinvented with shared access paths, walls and blades that form patios, and vegetation that covers the large glass door at the entrance of the house. The facade becomes more profuse with balconies, and cantilevered and recessed bodies that provide the houses with three-dimensionality and rhythm. The project represents a subtle homage to the architecture of Porto, using the modularity concept of the typical houses of downtown Porto. The appropriation of the building by its residents is encouraged through the introduction of copper-plated planters that allow the residents to personalize their space on each floor through vegetation. Sustainability is one of the pivotal characteristics of Buganvílias Houses, achieved through technology and the encouragement of the creation and maintenance of green areas and the preservation of nature. The project symbolizes the reinvention of an architect in the same program, proving that architecture is a dynamic art and science that lives to and is based on the world around it.

Photo credit: Nelson Garrido