After a Devastating Fire, a Couple Craft a Spartan House From Concrete and Glass

When deadly wildfires broke out in the Pedrógão Grande region of central Portugal in June 2017, they swept across the rural plot that Geneva, Switzerland–based couple Sandra Mudronja and Pierre Vadi had recently purchased. "When we first visited the property in March that year, it had only a ruined barn and a terraced garden planted with olive, citrus, medlar, arbutus, and cork oak trees," says Pierre, an artist. Yellow mimosas and fresh spring grass added to that "vegetal exoticism" the urbanites craved. They imagined a country home with easy access to this landscape. Four months later, its lush flora was decimated.

But sometimes an unexpected force of nature inspires new possibilities. Sandra and Pierre engaged Lisbon architect Miguel Marcelino to create a home on the now-charred earth. They left their design brief quite open-ended, requesting only "autonomous architecture that’s very open to the outdoors but independent from it," recalls Pierre. Marcelino looked to the agricultural site, located two hours by car from Lisbon, as the design’s impetus.

"It became clear to us that this type of landscape didn’t call for a traditional, archetypal house, but rather for something more abstract," the architect says. To contrast the horizontality of the 11,517-square-foot (1,070-square-meter) site’s existing stone retaining walls, he decided to use concrete columns—65 of them—as the home’s primary structural element.

These pillars rise from a concrete plinth on a garden terrace to form a home reminiscent of a hypostyle hall. The structure is fully exposed, and it creates a portico around an interior glass box that contains the living spaces. The pavilion-like structure stands alone atop its hill, partially closed and and partially open to nature.