Three kinds of users were established: the workers, the customers, and the owners. The strategy went through softening and moulding the topography, accommodating the program into new scattered constructions at different levels along the hill, in order to reinforce the different privacies of use. The idea of grading different privacies, inside and in between each building, has merged the landscape and architecture project into one, although with different lexicons.
Closer to the Cellar is located the reception/administration office and wine tasting room building which is deployed on two levels, the reception at the bottom of the slope and the tasting room at the top, with a view to the vineyard. A bigger elevation, located in the centre of the hill, defines the division from public areas to private areas without blocking connection. Over the central elevation, at the same level of the tasting room, a swimming pool divides the living area from the bedrooms, which are located on a lower level facing the opposite side, towards the sunrise (East).
All the constructions are made out of rammed earth from the site, the walls were afterwards covered by a natural lime plaster on the inside but on the outside the colour was tuned to the orange of the earth, allowing the constructions to fade into the landscape. This option of construction, together with the cross ventilation through the windows and the pergolas with climbing greenery for shade, made the building more efficient along the hardest season of the year, summer.
Apart from being a scenario, integrated in the landscape through the garden that involves the constructions, the compound is like an old village where agriculture, commerce and dwelling share space, extending each building interior to the exterior, along the different areas with distinct grades of privacy, which in the end define all the hill as one whole and single entity.
Awards
Arquitetura no Alentejo 2023 (Portugal) - Honorable Mention
Sustainability and Innovation Awards 2021 (Portugal) - Finalist
Year – 2012|2020
Client – Herdade da Cardeira, Erika & Thomas Meier
Location – Orada, Borba, Portugal
GPS - 38º.84'815''N 7º.46'116''W
Site Area – 400sqm (buildings) 15.000sqm (landscape)
Budget – undisclosed
Status – built
Partners – Albuquerque Goinhas, Cristina de Mendonça, Nuno Griff
Project Team – Ana Teresa Hagatong, Ana Sofia Amador, Valeria Lampariello, Paula Vargas, Gloria Berenguel, Pavol Dobsinsky, Rui Neto
Landscape Architecture – Sandra Nunes
Engineering – Pedro Fragoso Viegas (PFV)
Rammed Earth Consulting - Henrique Schreck
Contractor – Construções Monsaraz
Photography – Simone Bossi