A 1959 Athouguia house

The project

A listed modernist house designed by Ruy Jervis d’Athouguia in 1959, rehabilitated as a single dwelling in Cascais. The heritage opinion made us keep two elements we had proposed to remove.

What we were responsible for

A house designed in 1959 by Ruy Jervis d’Athouguia, brought back into use as a single dwelling. The lower floor becomes the social half — living room and kitchen in one open space, with a television room and a study off it; the upper floor holds five bedrooms, two of them en suite, with shared bathrooms serving the other three. The servicing is where a rehabilitation is won or lost: underfloor heating throughout, and two separate air-handling systems, one per floor, threaded through voids the 1959 building already had rather than through new chases cut into it. Architecture and all engineering disciplines under one design contract; the licence was granted in June 2026.

What this does not include

The house is not ours and the drawing that made it is not ours: it is Athouguia’s, and it is listed. Our first proposal took out the stone wall at the entrance and the concrete canopy above it. The council’s heritage department disagreed, in writing, and it was right: both belong to the original composition. The scheme was reworked to keep them, and that is the version that was approved. The client is not named and neither is the street. The images are renders: the licence is granted and the work has not started.

Verified facts

The house was designed in
1959 by Ruy Jervis d’Athouguia
Floors
2 social below, private above
Bedrooms
5 two of them en suite
Air-handling systems
2 one per floor, run through existing voids
Elements the heritage opinion made us keep
2 the stone wall and the concrete canopy
Planning consent granted
2026-06 construction not yet started

Images

The house seen across a lawn from below: a low white two-storey volume with a continuous recessed upper gallery behind slender columns, a rough stone wall running along its base, and planting at the foot of the elevation. — The stone wall along the base is the one we proposed to remove and were told to keep.

The long side of the house from the garden, the upper floor closed by horizontal timber louvres and the ground floor fully glazed, with dense planting pressing against the corner. — Six structural bays, unchanged. The rehabilitation works inside them.

The pool terrace: a dark rectangular pool set into pale stone paving, two timber loungers and a low round table, the house behind with its glazed ground floor open to the terrace. — The pool is new; its edge follows the line the terrace already had.

The same terrace at dusk, the pool lit from within and the interior visible through the full-height glazing, the upper gallery in shadow above. — At night the 1959 section reads clearly: a slab, columns, and everything else glass.

The living room: pale seating around a long low fireplace bench, columns left standing in the middle of the space, and a wall of glazing onto the garden at the far end. — The columns stay where they are. The furniture is laid out around them, not against them.

The kitchen: a long island with six stools, oak units closing both ends of the room, integrated ovens on the left and a single linear pendant the length of the island. — Kitchen and living room share one room; the island is the only thing dividing them.

The dining area: a round pale table with eight chairs on a wool rug, a large sculptural ring pendant above, and sliding glazing onto the pool terrace behind. — The far end of the same open space, opening onto the terrace.

The television room: a low timber media unit under a wall-mounted screen, an L-shaped sofa around a stone coffee table, and a corner of glazing onto the garden. — The one room on this floor that closes off from the rest.

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