Papagaio Verde House

António Fernandez Architects

Short description

The Papagaio Verde House was born from a dream. A dream that stretched over the city of Funchal, crossing avenues lights and the immensity of the sea, wrapped in the heavenly tranquillity of the hillside. The terrain was steep, and the first challenge was to accommodate the programme. A simple dwelling, spacious, crystalline, and bold. A house that retracts and hides for those who access it, but which opens completely, like a belvedere to the landscape, which is offered to it on the opposite side. Like a piece of volcanic rock, reddish brown, with forming hollows, the house has emerged and opened, creating its crevices, covered by glass that reflects the sky. And the dense block of rock became crystallised at that precise point, allowing the creation of life and contemplation inside.
The constraints of the terrain led to its implantation and functional distribution. The three-storey house has only one floor above the ground and it is adapted to the steep terrain on the lower floors, gaining amplitude. The access platform leads to the garage, from which the lower patio can be glimpsed, and which lights up the large living room on the floor -1. A bridge leads to the entrance to the house, which opens through the wooden cross lath on level 1. The bedrooms are on this floor. The suite is a large crystal cube that towers above the glass façade. A cube that defies gravity, with a mirror on the lower part that reflects the image of whoever looks at it from below.
Finally, connecting the three floors is the lift, which, in a towering volume torn by horizontal glass, mysteriously allows connection to the chill-out on the roof terrace, that you can calmly stay at the end of the day, contemplating the cosy arrival of night.