In the landscape of the great lowlands of the Alentejo region, the Torre de Palma estate includes an extent of agricultural fields and a sizable group of buildings confined on the southeast side of the property. The project for the installation of a Wine Hotel in this particular environment aimed to respond to the new functional program while respecting the architectural and morphological features of the built aggregate and its surrounding landscape.
The intervention included both the repair and remodeling of the old farm buildings and the construction from scratch of a new set of buildings, based on precise gestures, respecting the lands’ exceptional features.
In the reconstruction of the pre-existent structures, the general configuration of each building was kept, comprising only a few minor changes in the interior spaces and the insertion of new openings when needed. Wherever necessary, structural elements, roofs or coatings were also replaced.
The new constructions had two different natures: entirely new buildings that were placed outside of the original built aggregate and new buildings that replaced old constructions – degraded and with no historic or architectonic interest – with a new common material identity: concrete structure, masonry walls and concrete slabs roofs.
>Project Details:
Location: Monforte, Portalegre, Portugal
Type: Hotels
Architects: João Mendes Ribeiro and Luísa Bebiano
Client: Torre de Palma Lda – Dr. Paulo Barradas Rebelo, Dr. Isabel Rebelo
Photos: do mal o menos – Eduardo Nascimento and João Fôja JOÃO MENDES