In Agramonte, where there are still echoes of its industrial past, Casa FM emerges as a daring statement. The client wanted to transform na old disused warehouse into a family home in the style of a loft – an unusual request in terms of Portuguese building traditions, but one that the architect António Bessa Cruz embraced as the starting point for a project where authenticity is achieved through illusion.
Faced with the impossibility of converting the existing warehouse, the solution was to take a daring approach: to demolish so as to rebuild, but keeping the language of the original building alive. Thus, the new structure revives the industrial profile of the building through exposed beams, pillars and ducts, as well as iron frames and concrete floors, in a subtle interplay between what existed and what is only hinted at. In this way, the architecture resembles a stage set designed for the family to inhabit a setting that seems to have always been there.
With its 400 m², the house dazzles us with its exuberant ceilings, where natural light pours in through interior courtyards and even the staircase seems to follow the luminous recesses. These strategically positioned features guarantee ventilation and privacy in a building with few openings to the outside, while simultaneously blurring the boundaries between indoors and outdoors. The ambience remains raw, genuine, almost industrial, but it's always counterbalanced by contemporary comforts, such as underfloor heating, which ensures thermal stability in a space where the industrial scale could lead to the opposite.