Set amid the rolling landscape of rural Portugal near the town of Monsaraz, this concrete house by Lisbon-based architecture practice Aires Mateus marries the material’s brutalist rigour with a sculptural purity that echoes the unspoilt beauty of the Alentejo region. The property overlooks the vast Alqueva Lake, the largest artificial lake in Europe, whose boundless extent informed the architects’ decision to centre the house on a protected courtyard embracing the water. Contrary to the prominent position of the nearby town of Monsaraz, a fortified settlement perched atop a rocky outcrop, the house that Mateus designed hides in plain sight. Dug into a hillside and concealed by a green roof, the only visible elements of the building’s presence are the cantilevered roof jutting out towards the lake and the white-painted circular light wells, but even these are only visible from above.

 位于Monsaraz镇附近的葡萄牙乡村的起伏景观中，这个由里斯本建筑实践的混凝土房子与材料的野蛮严谨结合在一起，具有雕塑的纯洁性，与阿伦特霍地区未受破坏的美丽相呼应。 酒店俯瞰着广阔的阿尔奎瓦湖，这是欧洲最大的人工湖，其无边无际的面积使建筑师决定将房屋的中心置于一个环绕水的受保护庭院中。 与附近的蒙萨拉兹镇的显著位置相反，莫萨拉斯镇是一个坚固的定居点，坐落在岩石露头上，Mateus设计的房子隐藏在平原上。 进入山坡，被绿色屋顶遮住，该建筑物存在的唯一可见元素是悬臂式屋顶朝向湖水伸出，粉刷成白色的圆形采光井，但即使是这样也只能从上面看到。

Accessed through a staircase that uncannily disappears into the ground, the house is comprised of three subterranean bedrooms that open up onto two circular patios, and two communal rooms, a living space and a kitchen, which converge onto a sheltered terrace overlooking the lake. Enclosed by the concave mass of the cantilevered roof structure, the terrace is a cathedral-like, domed space whose sculptural coherence and massive height is juxtaposed with the vastness of the unfolding landscape. Featuring a circular skylight formed by an inverted dome, the “scooped out” volume of the terrace attests to the architects’ love for geometry and compositional precision.

 房屋通过楼梯进入地下，由三间地下卧室组成，可通向两个圆形露台，两间公用房间，一个起居空间和一间厨房，汇聚到一个俯瞰湖泊的带遮盖露台上。 由悬臂式屋顶结构的凹质量包围，露台是一个大教堂般的圆顶空间，其雕塑的一致性和巨大的高度与展开景观的广阔性并列。 以一个由倒置穹顶形成的圆形天窗为特征，露台的“铲出”体积证明了建筑师对几何和构图精度的热爱。

While the green roof integrates the house into the landscape, the exposed part of the concrete structure stands out against the grassy hillside with its board-formed texture reflecting the starkness of natural landscape. The same brutalist sensibility is carried on inside where exposed concrete floors and ceilings are complemented by wooden panelling on the walls, painted white in the living and kitchen areas, but left in its natural finish in the corridor. White paint is also applied to the bedroom walls as well as the circular courtyards they open up onto, which also feature white tiling and white pebbles, in order to increase the amount of reflected daylight entering the rooms. Underpinned by a minimalist aesthetic, complete with hidden storage seamlessly integrated into the building fabric, the monastic austerity of the interior design mirrors the beautiful emptiness of the surrounding countryside whilst imbuing the house with a contemplative ambience.


绿色屋顶将房屋与景观融为一体，混凝土结构的裸露部分在草木山坡上显得突出，其板状纹理反映出自然景观的鲜明性。内部同样具有野蛮主义的敏感性，裸露的混凝土地板和天花板与墙壁上的木制镶板相辅相成，在起居区和厨房区涂成白色，但在走廊上自然保留。卧室的墙壁以及打开的圆形庭院也涂有白色油漆，墙壁上还铺有白色瓷砖和白色卵石，以增加进入房间的日光反射量。以极简主义美学为基础，并将隐藏式存储空间无缝集成到建筑结构中.

House in Monsaraz by Aires Mateus Architects. Photo by Joao Guimaraes.

 在Monsaraz的房子由艾里斯马特斯建筑师设计。 
 照片由Joao Guimaraes拍摄。