Mirrors in the Garden? A Punchy Lisbon Townhouse Finds Clever Design Fixes for City Living

Making the right choice often comes down to a gut feeling. This is a truth Ana Fortin knows well. "I can’t just choose something because I need something," says the Paris-born sales manager, who has lived in Lisbon since she was a child. "I would prefer to eat on the floor than have the wrong table."

Ana’s house, which she shares with her 10-year-old daughter, Madalena, wears her choices like a coat of arms. Her taste tends toward midcentury modern, with bold twists, like the graphic terrazzo tiles in her kitchen and bath and the pin-striped parasol in her backyard. She commissioned a stately round dining table from Portuguese designer Tomaz Viana and paired it with a set of organic Hiroshima chairs by Naoto Fukasawa for Maruni. When Ana needed an outdoor shower for her back garden and pool, she ordered three options to inspect for herself; when they weren’t what she envisioned, she sent them back one at a time. Fortunately, a fourth fit the bill.

But her intuition—which strikes her when she knows something is just right—goes deeper than decorations. When Ana first visited her property in 2014, the plot of land bore only the uninhabitable ruins of two houses. Still, she just knew that it was the right spot for her home. And when she met with the team at Fala Atelier, she knew the firm was the right one to build it because it’s known for taking big swings with its designs.