All houses
House 03
03
Casa Foz
A narrow 1920s townhouse, dark at its centre, opened up around a new oak-lined light well that carries daylight down through four floors.
Location
Foz do Douro, Porto
Type
Renovation
Completed
2024
Area
280 m²
Duration
14 months
Fig. 01 —
Casa Foz
(01)
The house
Dark in the middle
Like many townhouses in Porto, this one was deep, narrow and dark in the middle. The family loved the street, the tiled front and the walk to the sea, but not the evenings spent with the lights on at four in the afternoon.
A light well, wrapped in oak
We cut a light well through all four floors and wrapped it in oak, with the stair winding around it. Daylight now reaches the kitchen on the lowest level, and the stair has become the heart of the house — the place everyone passes, and often stops.
The tiled façade was cleaned, repaired tile by tile and otherwise left alone. Behind it every room was re-planned: a study under the roof, a kitchen in oak and limestone that opens to the garden, and built-in joinery that quietly holds a family’s worth of things.
Oak, Moleanos limestone, lime plaster, restored façade tiles
“The stair used to be something we hurried past. Now it is where everybody stops.”
Helena & João P., owners
