APT

Espinho's orthogonal grid is dense and leaves few sites large enough for projects of this scale. At the southern edge of the town, a carpet factory about to close — flanked by a stream the council had already landscaped, close to the beach, fronting Rua 20 with the Vouguinha on one side — formed a triangle with rare potential.

The owner wanted to add value to the asset and gave us room to decide the best solution. We have worked in this town for more than two decades and our office is here, which weighed on how we read the site: with the sea close by, a site of this size and surroundings that are not yet built out, the answer was not to densify.

We did the opposite. Take up as little ground as possible and build upwards, keeping the space as open as the brief would allow. The scheme is organised as a gated development, one of the first in the town, with two buildings of distinct character.

On the best part of the site, a single building of substantial mass takes most of the buildable area and opens to views that run from Aveiro to Porto. Beside it, a lower building unfolds into three volumes linked organically to one another, echoing the carriages of the Vouguinha.

A green curtain wraps the whole development. The study of shadow, of the living spaces and of the outdoor areas belonging to the ground-floor units guided the design from the start. It is an object you resist at first and then take to.