In the vast Alentejo plains, where silence replaces words and time slows between the shifting light on the vegetation, lies Monte de Água Vai — a two-hectare property that revisits the vernacular essence of the traditional montes alentejanos, so deeply rooted in the landscape of Santiago do Cacém. There are no buildings in sight — only open fields, land, and sky in an uninterrupted dialogue. Drawing from this vernacular architectural lexicon, the project offers a refined, contemporary reinterpretation of the Alentejo homestead.

The house settles naturally onto the terrain, without imposing on it, surrounded by sparse, low vegetation typical of this geography of scarcity and raw beauty. The project chooses simply to be — to accompany, to belong to what was already there long before architecture arrived.

The house turns inward, organised around interior patios, as if retreating into silence to better contemplate the world. Simultaneously, it unfolds toward the exterior landscape, allowing the living room and the four suites to open onto sheltered spaces of contemplation, where nature yields to the gaze that extends toward the horizon.

The access path follows the natural contours of the land, gradually revealing the building — not as an object asserting its presence, but as one that rests with respect upon the landscape. It emerges as a quiet volume anchored in the vastness, discreetly attuned to the rhythm of the place. The façade, in a restrained and purified white, is punctuated by vertical wooden elements that open and close with the passing of day and night, like eyelids regulating light and intimacy. They are gestures of protection, echoing the serene isolation of the traditional montes alentejanos.

The project proposes an expression of abstract plasticity and formal restraint, where architecture is a silent presence in harmony with the vastness, solitude, and poetic character of the Alentejo landscape.

“The plain is deceptive: it seems to have no end, and yet it does have a beginning.” — José Saramago, Levantado do Chão

Team

Bruno Câmara, Andrei Barros, Íris Pedro, João Câmara, Miguel Vieira da Silva, Paulo Silva Nunes, Miguel Calado