Private Garage in Águeda / Paulo Martins

Architects: Paulo Martins
Location: 3750 Agueda, Portugal
Area: 160.0 m2
Project Year: 2016
Photographs: ITS – Ivo Tavares Studio

Text description provided by the architects. An unusual challenge, where reverse thinking was indispensable. A global intervention, which started privately, through the emotion of the construction and a passion for motors. And a very unique garage was born, a garage that is more like a gallery where the cars share the space with the desire to observe and study, where the hum of running motors blends with the sound system of a Porsche, giving us the opportunity to listen to great music as we sit and muse on the next journey we will be taking, sitting on an exciting Famel.

The property, in an open area, without any relevant references or constraints enabled the placement of the space in the northern part of the property, freeing up the rest of the area for the construction of the home to which the garage will belong. An average building, with lacquered aluminium sheets, it exudes the same sense of industrial and technological determination as for the building’s contents, but which, at the same time, is discreet and hermetic, like a bunker protecting its occupants.

It is a grey structure, serving as a garage, which, unlike its exterior image, is brilliant and luminous inside, aseptic. The interior appearance diverts attention from the building’s construction and directs it at the exuberant prominence of the state of the art automotive engineering which makes this garage a veritable art gallery!