In Melgaço, in the former province of Minho, in the north of Portugal, Nuno Brandão Costa carried out an intervention on the remains of a small rural building, inserting a house-jewel box inside it.
The house to be extended, a very small rural stone building, formerly inhabited by a family of 11 members, fits into the rough terrain of a large plot of land in Melgaço, in the interior of Minho, in Northern Portugal.
The powerful landscape and the character of the existing ruin suggested an extension to the house like a timeless construction, with no defined boundaries, but limited by the local materials.
The extension to the house, which accommodates the lounge and three bedrooms, is an underground body which lets in natural light through the opening of a courtyard to the east, cut out from the land, and the west extension of the original façade: a granite wall made of stones from another local building since demolished.
