Spaceworkers

Spaceworkers' latest project is an impressive, house-shaped cultural centre inside a 19th-century school, but it was the firm's portfolio of beautiful house designs that caught our eye. Recent residential offerings include the linear and imposing Sambade House and the low, concrete-and-wood composition of BE House, both built in small towns in northern Portugal. The practice's founders, Henrique Marques and Rui Dinis, hail from the town of Paredes, east of Porto, where they set up shop in 2007. Their plans, however, reach far beyond their home town. 'In the next couple of years the office aims to cross the Portuguese borders and develop projects in other environments,' they explain. 'We want to interact with different cities and skylines around the globe.'
www.spaceworkers.pt
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Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture & Environment Director at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018), Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020) and House London (2022).
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