A striking residential project in Matosinhos, Portugal, is challenging conventional suburban architecture with its unconventional inverted roof design. Created by renowned Fala Atelier, whose work was featured on Dwell's September/October 2023 cover, this 2,580-square-foot home transforms the typical suburban silhouette through its signature black, white, and green color palette combined with unexpected architectural twists.
The residence's most distinctive feature is its inverted sloped roof, where one side curves while the other remains straight, creating what the architects describe as a "peculiar silhouette that disrupts the monotonous suburbia." This unconventional approach results in a structure that resembles an exploded box sitting atop a translucent base, immediately setting it apart from neighboring homes in the Portuguese suburb.
Fala Atelier's design philosophy extends beyond the roof to encompass the entire exterior treatment. Different vertical and slanted surfaces are distinguished by meticulously chosen colors, while round and square windows punctuate the white canvas to create three distinct elevations. Some window arrangements appear to mimic faces, while others evoke imaginary animals, adding a playful element to the serious architectural statement. The building's vibrant palette includes blue and green shutters that can conceal openings, rendering the house similar to a paper collage where colored figures are scattered across a white background.
The interior design divorces structure from walls through an innovative approach featuring five slender, light green concrete columns that reveal themselves in different rooms throughout the home. These columns deliberately obstruct daily routines, forcing inhabitants to navigate around them in a choreographed dance of daily life. Remarkably, one column extends onto the terrace while supporting nothing, serving as a purely aesthetic element that reinforces the home's artistic concept.
The ground floor living space opens directly to the garden and connects vertically to an office above, creating a flowing relationship between indoor and outdoor environments. The complexity of the interior results from double-height spaces, occasional wall kinks, strategically placed concrete columns, and the gently sloped ceiling that follows the roof's unconventional geometry. On the upper level, the primary bedroom occupies an extruded quarter-circle space that maximizes the unique roof design's potential.
According to the architects, the house is "carefully assembled out of surfaces—straight, folded, cut, curved, and tilted—whether crafted from concrete, marble, or glass brick." These surfaces divide, overlap, intersect, and cover spaces while being anchored by columns that boldly punch through different levels. The interior space meanders between these choreographed elements, creating a living environment where residents must adapt their movements to the architectural concept rather than the architecture serving conventional living patterns.
Photographed by Francisco Ascensão, the completed project demonstrates how contemporary residential design can challenge suburban conformity while maintaining livability. The architects describe their creation as simultaneously "complete and broken," reflecting the tension between conventional residential expectations and avant-garde architectural expression. This project continues Fala Atelier's exploration of how bold color choices and unconventional structural decisions can transform ordinary residential programs into extraordinary architectural statements that question the very nature of suburban living.
