JL Farm – Agritourism

Type: Construction of an Agritourism farm
Client: Private
Location: Vagos, Portugal
Status: Settled
Project Author: Maria Fradinho
Team: Ana Soares, Ana Rita Gomes
Project Date: 2019 – 2021
Plot Area: 10500 m2
Original Project Author: Unknown

The JL farm is an agritourism enterprise located in a low occupancy density area, in the city of Vagos. It is ensured a strategy for a dynamic and a living space, combining different purposes, functions and uses, blending the agricultural facilities and the tourist accommodations.

In the central core of the set is the common building, which defines the reception, the bar and a multipurpose room; and also, the pre-existing greenhouse building, which defines a cultivation area combined with a versatile space for events. In the sunniest area of the central core, there is an outdoor swimming pool and spaces for outdoor recreational activities, in perfect conjunction with green spaces with variable vegetation, which define and enrich each space, through an organic design that crosses different environments.

The common building and the greenhouse allude to the traditional wooden barn, with the gabled roof being recreated, clad with both metallic strips and metallic profiles, both in the color of wood. In the greenhouse, polycarbonate plates are used to fold the exterior walls and ceilings, assuming a perennial and contemporary character, of permeability and continuous interior-exterior relationship.

In the area established for private spaces, it is designed several cabins, which are built in steel frame and covered by natural canes. The materiality and colouring are subtle, ensuring all the accommodations are comfortable and intimate. Each unit includes a suite, a bathroom, a dining room, and a terrace.

The facilities for the animals, usually marginalized, are placed in-between the common and private spaces, merging with its context. The structural system is made entirely of steel and wood, and covered by natural canes.

It is designed, as a poetic promenade, a living and organic motion based on plasticity and fluidity as opposed to the exactitude of geometry and architecture, and intertwining different realities.

The walkway gives access to the cabins, which are raised from the ground, and enclose the animal’s facilities. By raising these elements, it is created permeability, allowing the continuity of the natural vegetation and morphology, and keeping the drainage ditches.

JL Farm is designed considering a genuine and immediate contact between nature and architecute. The plasticity and fluidity reinforce the urban context, establishing principles of proximity and reflection. Thus, the hybrid and organic delineation, by using fluid and curved lines, is opposed to the human condition.