The Portuguese studio Bak Gordon Arquitectos has completed a house next to a long pool in the Alentejo region of Portugal. The pool, which runs alongside the southern wall of the house, was the starting point for the design of Casa Azul (blue house).

The municipality of Grândola, located in Alentejo, is famous for its red wine, vast olive groves, rolling hills, and cork forests. It was here that a group of four friends decided to purchase four plots of land together, hiring the Lisbon-based architecture studio Bak Gordon to sensitively build a vacation home that would blend with the arid landscape. Through well-considered openings and sheltered retreats, this Portuguese family vacation home encourages conversation and togetherness among its residents.

Blending perfectly with the sandy terrain, the vacation home presents a simple aesthetic, where the natural ground inspires the earthy wall cladding, tan-toned furniture, and subtly textured surfaces bathed in lime mortar with ochre shades. The newly completed elongated residence features a charming interior courtyard that channels light into its center, while two double-height forms stand at each end to create private yet uniquely outdoor living spaces adorned with an intentional interplay of light and shadow, which becomes essential to the space.

One of the challenges of contextual design was to minimize the use of materials and extend the tone of the exterior walls to the interior, considering the changing angles of the sun. The design team also mentioned that “the clash with the landscape was inevitable,” so they decided to mitigate the contrast of the “artificial geometry” with the natural landscape using furniture in natural tones and simple, earthy colors that come to life with the interplay of light and shadow.

Furthermore, a conscious and sustainable design choice was made by using cork to naturally insulate the house against extreme heat, a material that “allows the house to breathe.” The vernacular architecture and the site’s surroundings also influenced this material choice, where lime mortar is widely used to coat buildings in Alentejo.

“The presence of cork, which insulates the entire house from the exterior, is also a distinctive feature of the Alentejo landscape,” explained Bak Gordon Arquitectos to Dezeen publication.

“Lime mortar, which covers all surfaces, has always been used in ancestral buildings in Alentejo. We applied a pigmented mortar on all surfaces,” they mentioned.

“Casa Azul” by Bak Gordon sets the standard for a new caliber of family and group accommodation in Portugal through authentic century-old living rituals and a floorplan informed by the routine movements of the sun.

Bak Gordon is an architecture studio based in Lisbon, Portugal. The studio is known for its sensitive and creative approach to architectural design and has worked on a variety of projects ranging from residences and commercial spaces to cultural and public installations.