10.3 CASA CRESPO
Doma magazine





We started Casa Crespo with a detailed and rich description of the vision: the social space, specifically the ‘living room’ should be spacious enough to accommodate a large dining table, a big couch with a large TV, a snooker table, and even a DJ table for party days. It should also be open to the kitchen and take advantage of a double height, just as the client had seen in a Brazilian soap opera weeks before (very similar to Hoffman’s Palais Stoclet, even though we prefer his rival Loos at Villa Müller, for example). Kidding or not, they also mentioned that it would be good if the pool had a high diving board.




1. Casa Crespo, view from the southeast corner








(2)- Casa Crespo, model – view from the pool to the porch.
(3)- Casa Crespo, ground floor plan.
(4)- Stahl House, Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles, Courtesy Stahl Family Archive.
(5)- Casa Crespo, view from the pool to the porch.
(6)- Casa Crespo, elevation.



Show me your Pinterest, and I will... do nothing out of it, but still.







(7)- Palais Stoclet, Vienna, Josef Hoffmann, 1911 in www.architectmagazine.com.
(8)- Casa Crespo, first floor plan.
(9)- San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane, Francesco Borromini, 1641, www.generativeart.com.
(10)- Casa Crespo, view from the central double height space.



EGYPTIAN HALL FOR PARTIES

The space (spazio) between the columns and the wall was covered by a floor (pavimento); this floor [...] provided a corridor or balcony all around. Above the columns there was a continuous wall with half-columns [...], letting the light into the hall and through which you could look into the hall [...]. These halls must have been particularly spectacular not only due to the splendour of the columns but also to their height [...]; they must have worked very well for occasions when they had parties or banquets.

Andrea Palladio, The Four Books of architecture, 1570, MIT Press, pp.41









(11)- Andrea Palladio, The Four Books of architecture, 1570, MIT Press, pp.42.
(12)- Sketch from the project process.
(13–15)- Casa Crespo, view from the corridor all around the central double height space.



THE DWELLING NATURE

A kind of “anti-domesticity”, as Pier Vittorio Aureli puts it, pervaded the entire research for an architectural truth to match this “fiction”. It may be an exaggeration, but the nature of this dwelling could be found in American boarding houses, where the socialisation of living in the communal area took place in a very open plan, essentially divided by structural elements of the building, with almost every function imaginable. That said, the private and strictly functional areas should be relegated to a parallel sphere that clearly separates social life from private/intimate life and reproductive work. All of them with a specific set of scenographic needs, the rooms on the upper floors were all ensuite (as in a real hotel), allowing for an autonomous scenographic performance: the pink room for the little girl, the large window with a view in the master bedroom, the aseptic and cleanable character of the kitchen/ laundry area, etc.









(30)- Ground Floor of Commodore Hotel with social areas - Typical American Boarding House in New York, 1919in Pier Vittorio Aureli, Martino Tattara, Living and Working, 2022, MIT Press, pp.30.
(31)- Typical Floor of Commodore Hotel with private rooms – Typical American Boarding House in New York, 1919in Pier Vittorio Aureli, Martino Tattara, Living and Working, 2022, MIT Press, pp.30.
(32)- Casa Crespo, model - central social space.
(33)- Casa de Férias - social space.
(34)- Casa Crespo, view fof the west facade.
(35)- Casa Crespo, west elevation.



STRATIFICATION

In order to put these parts together, we resorted to a recurring strategy of establishing a clear, stratified distinction between them: a spacious ground floor, essentially defined by the structural elements and an upper floor compartmentalised around a central congregating area, which is vertically connected to the ground floor in Casa Crespo.









(43)- Casa de Férias during construction.
(44)- Lote 7, detail.
(45)- Casa de Férias, detail.
(46) Casa de Férias, south facade.
(47)- Casa Crespo, detail.
(48)- Casa Crespo, detail.
(49)- Casa Crespo, longitudinal section.



HYPOSTYLE DOMICILE

The stratification idea, which has already been illustrated, is fundamentally made possible by the idea of a hypostyle domicile as a space of power and freedom. A theme widely explored in the history of architecture, having perhaps in the work of João de Castilho one of its highest exponents, particularly in Capela do Noviciado, Convento de Cristo, in Tomar.







(36)- João de Castilho, Capela do Noviciado, Convento de Cristo, Tomar.
(37)- Casa Crespo, horizontal detail.
(38–39)- Casa Crespo, sketch of the process, still testing a kind of double height facade based on Álvaro Siza’s Casa Beires.
(40)- Casa Crespo, view of the hypostyle porch.
(41)- Casa Crespo, view of the hypostyle porch.
(42)- Detail from Álvaro Siza’s Casa Beires, Póvoa de Varzim, reference facade from which we kept reminiscences.



STAPLING THE LAYERS: A PARTICULAR FRAMING

The connection between these seemingly assembled parts (which could either be divided in social area / rooms, as in Casa Crespo and Casa de Férias; or divided in garage / house, as in Lote 7) is always a shared theme and a kind of common project that is constantly changing and adapting. The staircase in Casa de Férias is a detached, suspended body from the main volume, with a chopped view given by the central landing window. We kept the same principle in Casa Crespo.
A few years ago, we heard a local man from Gemeses refer to the Casa de Férias as the “Casa do Americano” (House of the American), clearly referring to its type of wooden construction (since the client is Portuguese) and other odd features. The film “Ripley’s game” (2002), in which the American Tom Ripley becomes the owner of Palladio’s Villa Emo, shows the local Italians from Veneto gossiping about his way of occupying the villa. Τaste, one the most intriguing ingredients of a request, knows no social boundaries. Architects just have to accept tastes and lifestyles, not try to change them or educate people, but give them the most accurate architectural resonance. That’s why we are presenting many “echoes”: Casa Crespo and five other very different yet related villas, designed and built between 2016 and 2023. Testing the limits of convention is part of an architectural exercise and it should be done within the cultural framework of the request. With the progress of each project, this framework is usually much wider than one might first imagine. For this reason, the simple repetition of models is an inconsequential way out, instead we could make the history of architecture truly operative, informing new projects with very concrete and precise knowledge. The future of architecture can be its own selective recycling, its reprogramming, especially when the discipline’s conditions of production are radically different and economically, socially, and ecologically specific.








(16)- Casa de Férias, view from the interior staircase.
(17)- Casa de Férias, view from the east side.
(18)- Casa Crespo, stairs window.
(19)- Casa Crespo, location plan - peripheral area of Póvoa, mixing
productive fields, villas and a housing unit.
(20)- Casa Crespo, view from the northeeast.




60. Image taken from “Ripley’s game”, 2002, Liliana Cavani 


ARCHITECTS
ATELIERDACOSTA

PROJECT COORDINATION
Hugo Barros

TEAM
Hugo Barros
Pedro Matos
Ricardo Nunes
Emanuel Neves

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
GEP

HYDRAULICS ENGINEER
GEP

ELECTRICAL ENGINEER
OHM-E

MECHANICAL ENGINEER
OMEGAFLOW

MAIN CONTRACTOR
Construções Mazesi
Manuel Dantas
Virgínia Cerqueira

CLIENT
Elizabeth and João Crespo

TOTAL SURFACE
395 m²

SITE
745 m²

PROJECT DATE
2018

COMPLETION DATE
2023

LOCATION
Póvoa de Varzim



Photos 1, 5, 10, 15, 20–21, 23–24, 33, 39, 43–44
by Francisco Ascensão

Photos 17–19, 26–28, 37
by Tiago Casanova




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