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    São Miguel, Azores

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Photography: Carlos Cezanne 
28 / 12 / 2020
They communicate who they are through the space they have created as their home. The exacting details, the ethereal elegance and the restrained use of colour confirm this. 
We approach a stately home, a former social institution located just a stone's throw from the Ponta Delgada marina. While admiring the imposing façade, we imagine the austere mesh of its interiors. We couldn't have been more wrong. Guided by Bárbara Morgado and Óscar Catarino – the pair of architects we speak to on page 88 of this edition – we discover the soul of this place where purification reigns. And everywhere there is serenity.
Bárbara still talks about this project with great passion. She remembers the first time she stepped into the building and found an ambiance that was “heavy, dominated by brown wood, yellowed walls and worn-out floors", but that nonetheless fascinated her with its undeniable grandeur. Initially seen as an investment project, it quickly captivated the owners who would end up making it their home in 2015 – a space that although classic, "exudes modernity" and which despite its serenity, isn't shackled by minimalism. Although it was already "practically inhabitable", the architects decided to intervene in the kitchen and one of the bathrooms. They maintained the unusual spaciousness, which is distributed over two floors and multiplied by several rooms, studies and lounges. The refurbishment project would lead to the creation of spaces defined by an exquisite elegance, linked to each other in a way that avoids monotony, yet with an almost surgical precision and astonishing natural light. 
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With a ceiling height of four and a half meters on one of the floors, it’s a challenge to describe all the layers that comprise this residence. All we have to do is walk the corridors punctuated by mirrors hanging from the white walls, where we immediately find several photographs (among them, slides of works they worked on together during their college days), pieces of "gradually acquired", furniture or perfect lighting – for instance, the moooi and Poulsen lamps or the KTribe model from Flos – one of Bárbara's great passions “with the power to shape spaces and warm my heart", she admits. 
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For more information, visit box:arquitectos website.
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