Casa-Pátio: Reflexão e Projecto

Abstract

The courtyard house is a wide model in a geographical and historical level, transversal to various peoples and cultures, that remains today as a flexible type of dwelling and that allows the inclusion of exterior spaces which allow their dwellers the additional advantage of an outdoors living without loss of privacy, and at the same time permits an environmental control on the interiors by natural light and ventilation. The present dissertation analyses this type in a theoretical approach, in which the study falls upon the domestic roman architecture, and the works of the architects Josep Lluís Sert and Eduardo Souto Moura, and in a practical approach, with the realization of a project for a single-family house in the parish of Avintes, in Vila Nova de Gaia. Of the roman architecture are analyzed examples of diverse models of the urban domus and the way they allow the adaptation of a simple initial scheme into diverse contexts and the creation of more complex systems. In the study of Josep Lluís Sert's work we verify how this architect interprets the reference of the roman house into the construction of dwelling associated to a theory of the city that has the neighborhood unit has the fundamental element, demonstrating the capability of this model to produce qualified single-family houses at a low cost, able to be grouped and integrate the urban mesh, protecting the privacy of exterior spaces. Eduardo Souto Moura, whose works in study are located in Portugal, allows us to relate and to transpose the theoretical study into a project perspective closer to the architectural reality of our country, relating also in a more direct and objective way to the practical component of the project of a courtyard house in Avintes. This project sets the last chapter of this dissertation, where it exposes a practical and personal experience crossed with the precedent theoretical investigation, and where the courtyard concept is explored in an adapted way to the parameter of the today's Portuguese architectural reality. In brief, it demonstrates the complementary between theory and practice as fundamental instruments to the professional practice of an architect.