A 1959 Athouguia house

The project

A rehabilitation project for a listed modernist house in Cascais, designed by Ruy Jervis d’Athouguia in 1959. Licensed, with the entrance wall and its concrete canopy kept.

What we were responsible for

A house designed in 1959 by Ruy Jervis d’Athouguia, brought back into use as a single dwelling. The lower floor becomes the social half — living room and kitchen in one open space, with a television room and a study off it; the upper floor holds five bedrooms, two of them en suite, with shared bathrooms serving the other three. The servicing is where a rehabilitation is won or lost: underfloor heating throughout, and two separate air-handling systems, one per floor, threaded through voids the 1959 building already had rather than through new chases cut into it. Architecture and all engineering disciplines under one contract that also covers the construction; the licence was granted in June 2026 and the site opened the same month.

Who built it

WALLNUT is responsible for both the design and the construction, under a single contract: one team answers for the drawings and for the site. The work is under way.

What this does not include

The house is not ours and the drawing that made it is not ours: it is Athouguia’s, and it is listed. The stone wall at the entrance and the concrete canopy above it belong to the original 1959 composition, and the council’s heritage department ruled on them. The version that was approved keeps both. The listed fabric is what the work has to leave intact: the approved version is the limit of what may change.

Verified facts

The house was designed in
1959 by Ruy Jervis d’Athouguia
Floors
2 social below, private above
Bedrooms
5 two of them en suite
Air-handling systems
2 one per floor, run through existing voids
Elements of the original composition the approved version keeps
2 the stone wall and the concrete canopy
Planning consent granted
June 2026 site opened the same month

Credits

Initial concept
Ruy Jervis d’Athouguia the 1959 house
Architecture
WALLNUT the rehabilitation project
Engineering
WALLNUT

Images

The garden elevation seen past the trunk of a large tree: two floors, brick panels and pale horizontal bands, white screen panels behind the balconies, a blue band between the floors, and fallen twigs in the foreground. — Existing state, before the WALLNUT works.

The garden elevation square on: a brick panel to the left, two recessed floors with white screen panels and a blue band, the roof slab projecting above, and materials stacked against the base wall. — Existing state, before the WALLNUT works: the garden elevation as the house was found.

The garden elevation in close-up: two bands of white screen panels with a diamond pattern, between pale horizontal bands, with a brick panel at one side and a blue band between the floors. — Existing state, before the WALLNUT works. The house was designed in 1959.

A straight flight of stairs finished in red, rising against a wall with its finish removed, with a dark metal handrail and, beyond it, a corridor with uprights. — Existing state, October 2024: finishes removed. The site opened in June 2026.

A ground-floor room with its partitions removed, a metal upright under the beam, and the wall open onto the garden, with bougainvillea in flower against the hedge. — Existing state, October 2024: with the partitions removed, the floor opens onto the garden.

The cantilevered stair: white treads out of the wall with no stringer beneath them, a balustrade of thin dark uprights, and the finish opened along the wall. — Existing state, before the WALLNUT works.

A wall detail with a strip of finish removed, bounded by finish above and below, and a dark vertical line crossing the exposed area. — Existing state, before the WALLNUT works: the wall with its finish removed.

A corridor running under the stair: the undersides of the steps step down across the ceiling one after another, a red floor below, and a cable run along it. — Existing state, before the WALLNUT works. What crosses the ceiling is the underside of the stair, not beams.

The house seen across a lawn from below: a low white two-storey volume with a continuous recessed upper gallery behind slender columns, a rough stone wall running along its base, and planting at the foot of the elevation. — The stone wall along the base is one of the two elements the approved version keeps.

The long side of the house from the garden, the upper floor closed by horizontal timber louvres and the ground floor fully glazed, with dense planting pressing against the corner. — Six structural bays, unchanged. The rehabilitation works inside them.

The pool terrace: a dark rectangular pool set into pale stone paving, two timber loungers and a low round table, the house behind with its glazed ground floor open to the terrace. — The pool is new; its edge follows the line the terrace already had.

The same terrace at dusk, the pool lit from within and the interior visible through the full-height glazing, the upper gallery in shadow above. — At night the 1959 section reads clearly: a slab, columns, and everything else glass.

The living room: pale seating around a long low fireplace bench, columns left standing in the middle of the space, and a wall of glazing onto the garden at the far end. — The columns stay where they are. The furniture is laid out around them, not against them.

The kitchen: a long island with six stools, oak units closing both ends of the room, integrated ovens on the left and a single linear pendant the length of the island. — Kitchen and living room share one room; the island is the only thing dividing them.

The dining area: a round pale table with eight chairs on a wool rug, a large sculptural ring pendant above, and sliding glazing onto the pool terrace behind. — The far end of the same open space, opening onto the terrace.

The television room: a low timber media unit under a wall-mounted screen, an L-shaped sofa around a stone coffee table, and a corner of glazing onto the garden. — The one room on this floor that closes off from the rest.

Other work

A house turned away from the street
New house with pool
A stone manor, room by room
Rehabilitation of a stone manor
A 470 m² pharmaceutical head office in Carnaxide
Office fit-out

Reading note

On this page, 8 photographs of the state before the works and 8 renders of the design. We do not publish the client or the street. No costs, prices or margins are published.

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