The Agrela House by Spaceworkers is a house for books with a monolithic cover roof

Located in Paredes, Portuga and inspired by the classical renaissance libraries, Spaceworkers designed the Agrela House.

A house for books. This challenge started with a premise from the client: space for many books.

Immediately, Spaceworkers’ imaginary guided them to the many classical renaissance libraries, with sliding stairs that reach the book mountain. That was the motto of the intervention: a high space capable of generating the composition and hierarchize interior spaces.

The idea was growing and the volumetric experience led to the functional differentiation of the interior spaces, creating a roof as a restless mass with different heights. The roof also figures itself in a fifth facade and influences the idealization of the other ones.

Suddenly Spaceworkers had created a dense, heavy, monolithic cover roof that needed to be subverted, giving an idea of levitating mass that is slightly lying on light wood and glass. The roof seems to crush the users, reminding them of their own scale as humans and the ancestral importance of the shelter.

Curious to know more about residential architecture in Portugal? Don’t miss Casa A by REM’A architects is built in Portugal’s birthplace.

The time – important architectural component – is also an essential agent of the composition. The built elements – especially in concrete – seek to register the passage of time through its formwork texture. This formwork, similar to the roof variations, assumes ups and downs, protrusions and recesses, allowing it to keep the time with the representation of the shadows during the different hours of the day, giving also a dramatic appearance to the facades.

As time passes the textured concrete will naturally age and will be more integrated into the rural surroundings. The same will happen to the wood base, which the older it gets the more magnificence will become, enriching the house.

If you want to know more about incredible residential designs, don’t miss The Stark House seamlessly blurs natural and built environments.