RM House

António Fernandez Architects

Short description

If I could be as lofty and proud, as open, and discreet as the RM House, I would feel like I was ruling the world! Such is this simple yet mighty house. A sturdy, crystalline house, simple and open plan, where all space dominates and allows itself to be dominated. A house that is easy to grasp and retain. A house that lives on and extends itself into the distant landscape like a belvedere, from where everything can be seen and reached. In the background the sea and the immensity of the sky.
The RM house is located on a small lot, surrounded by high walls and by the levada that faces the plot, and which imposes the maximum height of the façade, thus conditioning its development. These strictures have led to its unique character.
Thus, those accessing the plot catch a glimpse of a white body with curved lines, which unifies elevation and roof, and where the large glazed lenses. The spatial diversity in such a small plot was here explored to the extreme.
Whoever enters the house is faced with a sculptural, white, luminous staircase where steps, artificial lighting and design are harmoniously combined. The staircase is the centre of the whole house, which connects everything and lets everything be seen and sensed with its transparency.
The RM house thus takes possession of all its exterior space, extends all of its compartments into it, knows how to discretely understand its different relationships and, for this reason, seduces. The variation in luminosity during the day transforms the house, and at night, light springs from it, like a lighthouse looking out to sea, which imposes its presence from above. But even so, it remains the small white house that contemplates the landscape and takes in the sky and the sea.