Desvão Atelier Raises an L-Shaped House in Sesimbra and Crowns It with a Terracotta Roof Lookout

Between Sesimbra and the village of Azeitão, in a residential enclave of cork oaks, holm oaks and low scrub, Desvão Atelier has completed HD House, a single-storey dwelling of about 300 m² on a trapezoidal plot of roughly 1,600 m². The road runs along the east side and neighbours press in from the north and south. The Serra da Arrábida sits on the horizon. Led by architect Frederico Vicente, the project answers that setting with an L-shaped plan, a central patio and a flat roof you can actually walk on.

On paper this is a familiar Portuguese brief: white render, local stone, handmade terracotta, a house that reads as rural without imitating a farmhouse. What makes it worth a closer look is how the architects handle the edges. The house sits one metre above the street on the existing slope rather than on a dug-out platform. The patio works as the real living room. The roof becomes a second ground plane, with a sculptural tiled chimney the architects themselves describe as a postmodern gesture. That small dose of irony keeps the house from becoming a catalogue of tasteful finishes.

A Reticent Face to the Road

From the street, HD House gives almost nothing away. A long white volume, a few tall narrow windows and a deep overhang over the timber door are all you get. The windows are vertical slots rather than picture openings, which keeps the bedroom wing private from passers-by and the neighbouring plots while still pulling light deep into the rooms.

The entrance sits at the northern corner, tucked beneath a cantilevered roof and reached by stone steps that take up the one-metre rise. It is a modest bit of ceremony, but it works: you climb slightly, step into shade, and only then turn into the longer wing. The curved concrete planter at the corner beside an olive tree softens what would otherwise be a very hard edge.

Building on the Slope, Not Into It

Using the natural gradient to lift the house saved the project from major earthworks, and you can feel that choice in the landscape. The gravel beds, rosemary and bark mulch near the entrance blend into the surrounding montado instead of fighting it. Landscape design by João Silva keeps the planting sparse and dry-climate appropriate, at least at the front of the plot.

Out back, the tone shifts. A rectangular pool, a stone terrace and a lawn sit against the long glazed elevation, with umbrella pines behind. The lawn is the most suburban move in the project, and some readers will question it in a region where water is precious. Still, the relationship between the floor-to-ceiling openings, the timber deck and the pool edge is cleanly resolved, and the white wall makes a calm backdrop for the trees.

The Patio as Hinge

The central patio is where the L-plan pays off. It joins the bedroom wing to the living wing and splits public from private without a single door. The same flooring runs from inside out to the courtyard, so when the sliding panels are open the boundary nearly disappears. Whitewashed walls catch hard shadows, and the terracotta stair rising out of the corner hints that the house continues upward.

The glazed corridor along the bedroom wing turns circulation into something you enjoy rather than tolerate. You walk alongside the pool terrace with the stair in view, so the route between rooms doubles as a lookout over the garden. It is a simple idea, and here it is executed with discipline.

Kitchen and the Logic of Built-Ins

The kitchen leans on full-height white cabinetry and a stone-clad island, with a sliding glass wall opening straight onto a courtyard planting. Storage is built into the wall so the room reads as one quiet surface rather than a collection of units. The stone counters, drawn from the palette of Lioz and Azul Cadoiço the architects specify, add weight without fuss.

The close-up of a stone countertop with a red glass bowl and oranges is styling, of course, but it does show how the material palette carries the house. Very little is decorative; the stone, oak and render do the work.

A Living Room Organised Around Fire

The shorter wing holds the open-plan living and dining area, and it is anchored by the sculptural fireplace. Built in terracotta-red brick, the hearth is small and recessed, more a niche than a monument. That restraint matters. In a room that opens through sheer curtains and sliding glass to the pool and pines, the fireplace gives the space a winter centre of gravity.

The red brick inside echoes the terracotta outside and on the roof, which ties the interior to the rural finishes the architects reference. It is one of the few places where colour enters a mostly white and oak interior, and it lands with real force.

The Private Wing

The longer wing holds three bedrooms, three bathrooms and a multipurpose room that can serve as a guest room or office. That flexible room is a smart hedge for a family house in a commuter-belt location, where working from home is now part of the brief rather than an exception.

Bedrooms open through glass doors onto lawn and olive trees, while hallways rely on white built-in wardrobes and oak floorboards caught by raking sunlight. Partitions are kept to a minimum. The sightline from bedroom into a small stone-floored toilet room shows how the plan favours continuity over enclosure, which works well when the household is close and a little less well when it is not.

Bathrooms in Stone, Tile and Oak

The bathrooms are where the material palette gets most expressive. Each one carries its own tile colour, taupe in one and dusty pink in another, set against floating limestone basins and round black-framed mirrors. Skylights bring daylight in from above, which keeps the narrow windows on the street side from being the only light source.

An oak partition screening a stone washbasin, with a tall window at the end of the corridor, shows how the architects use joinery to divide space without building walls. It is a craftsman's approach to planning, and it suits a single-level house where every partition has to justify itself.

The Roof as Lookout

The terracotta stair rising from the patio is the project's best surprise. It climbs between white walls toward a tiled chimney and the pine canopy, and it delivers you onto a wide roof terrace paved in handmade terracotta tile. The flat roof serves as solarium, terrace and lookout toward the Serra da Arrábida, effectively adding a second living floor without adding a storey.

The chimney is the formal gesture that gives HD House its character. Clad in terracotta with small slot openings, it reads somewhere between a vernacular stack and a small tower, and the architects are candid about the postmodern undertone. We think it earns its place: it gives the roof a focal object, marks the house within the trees and adds a note of wit to an otherwise very composed building.

Plans and Drawings

The site plan makes the strategy legible at a glance. The bedroom row stretches along one leg of the L, the open living wing forms the other, and the terrace and patio sit in the crook between them, surrounded by scattered trees. Seen next to the pool photograph, the plan shows how the house turns its back on the road and its neighbours and opens toward the garden and the hills.

Why This Project Matters

HD House is not a radical building, and it does not pretend to be. Its value lies in how it handles a very common Portuguese typology, the detached single-family house on a semi-rural plot, with more thought than usual. Lifting the house on its existing slope, organising it around a patio and treating the roof as usable ground are modest moves. Together they produce a home that feels much larger and more connected to its landscape than its 300 m² would suggest.

The project also shows that regional reference does not require nostalgia. Lioz and Azul Cadoiço stone, handmade terracotta and oak anchor the house in place, while the tiled chimney and lookout terrace add a self-aware twist that keeps the vernacular from turning into pastiche. For architects working in similar suburban contexts across southern Europe, that balance between material honesty and a little formal play is the lesson worth taking home.

HD House (Casa HD) by Desvão Atelier, lead architect Frederico Vicente. Location: Sesimbra, Portugal. Area: approximately 300 m². Year: 2024. Photography: Lourenço Teixeira de Abreu.

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