A Presença da Forma. A forma para uma reabilitação de uma casa em Arez e projeto equestre

Abstract

The presence of the past. Ruin and memory are two presences in the place. The two words combine, I can assume that there is no ruin without memory. However, I can remove two types of memory that live in ruin: The story that its construction tells, what the materials and construction methods reveal; and the narrative that is told by those who lived there. In this dissertation I present a practical case. Rehabilitation of an existing house, the ruin, and an equestrian project, near the village of Arez, district of Portalegre (Alto Alentejo). A project that aims to be built and as a client my father, who intends to live there. The place for the customer, my father, is the setting for many of his childhood memories, the house belonged to his grandfather, a country house for holidays; there he played and wove his memories together with his cousins. There is a clear image of the past of these ruins, and at the client's request, it is premised that the main façade retains the heritage of what it once was. My challenge is to give the ruins a habitable form, consider the weight of memory and question the home I will create; questioning in a broader and even abstract spectrum what a house is in conceptual terms. Give form. The word "form" has a panoply of applications in itself. Some of them, in architecture, I will deconstruct them. From the volumetric shape that delineates our perception of the building; from the way of thinking about space, the process; to how to use space.