Conversion Apartment Estoril

This project responds to the challenge of creating an apartment in a disused support area belonging to the ground floor of a single-family house, located next to a cliff in São João do Estoril, Cascais. The unique relationship with the sea was the main theme for the development of this conversion, which in the past had been used to dry the clothes from the house, store firewood for the cold winter nights and keep the old Estrela Mountain dog named Sultan.
The entire articulation of the apartment takes place according to a linear layout through a slender and enigmatic corridor, beginning at the entrance door and which reveals the presence of the blue of the sea, through a circular oculus in the distribution space at its end.
As one walks along this corridor, the oculus shows ever more blue, and the approach to the sea becomes increasingly evident. Arriving at the distribution area, and after looking through the oculus, one enters laterally either into the kitchen or the living room: here the culmination of the maritime experience occurs through the three large openings that, leaning over the cliff, almost allow one to fish directly from its terrace.
Due to the limitations of the pre-existing space, we chose to set the entire social layout in harmony with the sea and create new forms of habitability for the layout requirements of a suite and two bedrooms sharing a main sanitary unit.
One of the rooms faces the cobbled access to the house, through two small openings that overlook the village. The other bedroom, together with the suite, shares the introspective experience of the sky from a new patio in white pebble, through large glazed windows.
This conversion explores and ranks three distinct experiences: that of the sea, the village and the sky.

Cascais - Portugal
2019