The white walls of this modern day family house by FCC Arquitectura nestle behind the deteriorated stone facade of a former farmhouse and granary in northern Portugal .
Neighborhood studio FCC Arquitectura gutted two farm buildings in the Porto municipality of Felgueiras to free of charge up space for the new two-storey home, named Casa RM.
Associated story: Rural Slovenian cottage by Dekleva Gregorič has walls of stone set into concrete
Offered the poor condition of the aged buildings, the architects decided to demolish almost everything behind the thick outer stone walls and insert a new structure within.
A additional white block extends from the upper storey of the structure onto a slope at the rear of the website. Sections of crumbling stonework bracket this creating, which is partially split by a crevice in one particular side that separate the bedrooms from utility regions.
“The new volumes are created and are born from the ruins,” mentioned the architects. “The new housing is positioned inside these limits, like a loose box.”
Windows and pre-rusted steel doors in the new structure align with huge openings in the stone walls, which are topped by steel I-beams.
Wide garage doors and a set of gates into a yard both open straight off the road. A flight of rusty external steps leads to a glass-fronted terrace above the yard, which is shielded from view by the sloping wall of an adjacent pathway.
The garage and utility rooms are situated on the smaller ground floor that is partially embedded in the slope of the site.
Stairs with glass balustrades rise into a funnel-shaped hallway on the upper floor, where a living area with a marble fireplace is flanked by a huge window.
Two walls project away from this glass facade to defend a stretch of decking by the living room and master bedroom.
The kitchen, pantry and dining space sit off to 1 side of the hall in the upper storey of the old creating, although 3 bedrooms and bathrooms are positioned opposite.
Two low stone walls assistance a bank of planting and a pathway between the upper and reduced levels of the website.
Photography is by José Campos.
Project credits:
Architecture: FCC Arquitectura
Engineering: Paulo Oliveira
Builder: Adalberto e Filhos
Site plan 
Ground floor program 
1st floor program 
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