Project Name: Oeiras House

Location: Oeiras, Portugal

Design Team: OODA

Project Area: 350㎡

Completion: 2024

Landscape Design: p4 Engineering Tekk, A3R Lda

Engineering: TEKK, A3R Lda

Photography: Fernando Guerra | FG+SG

Feature：

Project - In a masterful interplay of topography and architectural innovation, OODA's latest residential project in Oeiras, Portugal, emerges as a compelling study in harmonizing built form with natural terrain. The 350-square-metre Oeiras House, completed in 2024, demonstrates how challenging site conditions can be transformed into extraordinary design opportunities.

The project's most striking feature is its central void – a regulating patio that serves as both the heart of the home and a sophisticated distribution mechanism for the program. Rather than struggling against the site's significant slope, the architects have embraced it, creating a half-buried entrance that dramatically reveals itself through a water feature that doubles as a scenic pool, introducing natural light and reflection into the subterranean space.

The house's composition is particularly noteworthy for its three-sided arrangement around the central void, where social and private spaces are unified through transparent interconnecting elements. This transparency creates an ethereal quality where the architecture appears to dematerialize at key junctures, most notably at the entrance. The building mass simultaneously appears to be both deeply anchored to the slope and floating, allowing the natural landscape to flow seamlessly between exterior and interior spaces.

Perhaps the most innovative aspect of the design is the treatment of the roof. Far from being a simple covering, it becomes an accessible, sloping plane that extends the house's narrative and functionality. The diagonal cross-movements animated in the transversal section create a dynamic contrast to the structure's horizontal emphasis, while varying degrees of transparency throughout the building envelope reinforce the architect's vision of a total, unified architectural experience.

OODA's intervention transforms what could have been a challenging site constraint into the project's defining feature, demonstrating how contemporary residential architecture can be both transformative and stabilizing, adding tangible quality to its context while maintaining a dialogue with the natural environment.

Design Team - OODA, a dynamic architectural practice founded in 2010 in Porto, Portugal, has emerged as a significant force in contemporary architecture through its innovative approach to design and international perspective. The firm was established by Diogo Brito and Rodrigo Vilas-Boas, who brought together their diverse international experiences from London and Rotterdam, creating a practice that bridges local sensibilities with global design thinking.

The practice's leadership expanded strategically over the years, with Francisco Lencastre joining in 2011, followed by João Jesus and Julião Pinto Leite in 2018, forming a robust five-partner structure. This collaborative leadership has driven OODA's portfolio to encompass a remarkable range of typologies, from bespoke residential projects to large-scale urban interventions and institutional complexes.

Operating from dual headquarters in Matosinhos and Lisbon, OODA has cultivated a diverse team of over 50 professionals from various nationalities, fostering a rich cross-cultural design dialogue. The firm's portfolio, spanning four continents and encompassing over 100 projects in 14 years, demonstrates their versatility in architectural programming and scale. Their work is characterized by a sophisticated understanding of contextual integration, tectonic expression, and programmatic innovation, consistently pushing the boundaries of contemporary architectural discourse while maintaining a strong connection to regional architectural traditions.