Home for two. A brief context to set expectations.

Home for two: Quick notes

Italian practice Atelier Matteo Arnone has completed House for Two Musicians, a minimal, symmetrical home with a pair of recording studios on the site of an old winery in Portugal.

Surrounded by vineyards at Quinta do Alamo in Carnota near Lisbon, the dwelling occupies the footprint of a dilapidated brick wine store that once stood at the edge of a forested area on the site.

Atelier Matteo Arnone made the building’s plan completely symmetrical following a request for the home to include two identical music studios.

House for Two Musicians is a symmetrical home in Portugal

“The clients’ brief was very simple, two functional spaces – a living room and a bedroom – and two identical recording studios,” Atelier Matteo Arnone founder Matteo Arnone told Dezeen.

“This immediately suggested a symmetrical approach to the project,” he continued.

“From the very beginning, the main idea was to create voids the act to ‘carve out’ this original volume, introducing internal patios to bring natural light and spatial depth that could embrace the two identical spaces.”

It contains two semi-circular recording studios on the first floor

The pair of recording studios sit at the heart of the home on the first floor, housed within two back-to-back semicircular forms on either side of a central square courtyard, which they overlook through porthole windows.

These studios project out over the living space and bedroom below, both of which open out onto courtyards at either end of the home through full-height, sliding glass doors.

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Above these living areas, the curved, blank walls of the studios create what Arnone describes as a “subtle curiosity” about their purpose.

They were finished in pale plaster to match the rest of the interiors, while the form echoes the curving walls of the patios opposite.

White walls enclose patios at either end of the home

A chunky perimeter wall wraps the home, doubling as a means of concealing the home’s bathrooms and staircase as well as smaller cut-outs for the kitchen counter, a fireplace and storage areas.

“These walls do more than serve a structural purpose; they integrate features such as the staircase leading to the upper-floor studios, as well as storage spaces and built-in furniture,” said Arnone.

“This choice ensures a minimalist and orderly aesthetic, optimising the overall organisation of the construction,” he continued. “This gives complete freedom to the two symmetrical spaces, allowing the architecture to remain pure, balanced.”

A narrow pool lines one side of the house

To the south, both the living room and bedroom open out onto a long, narrow pool with a timber decked terrace at either end, where stone steps lead down to a raised garden that overlooks the gently sloping site.

Based in Parma, Italy, Arnone founded his eponymous studio in 2022.

Elsewhere in Portugal, local practice Extrastudio recently completed a “radically simple” holiday home in Lourinhã that is coated in textured, earth-coloured lime plaster.

The photography is by Federico Cairoli.

The post Atelier Matteo Arnone creates symmetrical home for two DJs appeared first on Dezeen.

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