Habitar, Casas de água

Abstract

This dissertation arises from the possibility of recovering ten Water Houses in demarcated region of Douro, previously related to agricultural production and to reconvert them to tourism in a rural space. As a starting point for the project, and because all of them are very small in terms of space, it was made an analyses related to the subject of dwelling in minimal spaces, approaching three concrete cases from different personalities: an architect - Le Corbusier, a philosopher - Heidegger, and a writer - Thoreau. Once connected all the reading in one opinion, it is important to make the transition to the case-study: the ten Water Houses, trying to find a constructive solution than can be adapted to the different proportions of each house, but still with a concept through them all. During the progress of the work a question was arising, recurrent: when should architecture impose itself on the landscape? And when it comes to a landscape already deeply transformed by man, in which the exercise of imagining it in its natural state, without any human intervention, is almost impossible, and in which the spontaneity of nature and human creation / construction merge into one single act, unrepeatable? A rule was settled: to intervene without adulteration, to transform adding something, but always with the intention of preserving the continuity of the character of the place.