In Faro, in the south of Portugal, Corpo Atelier reworks a house around a pillar that carries no load and a series of cuts that open the white room to the wooden structure above it.
On the outside, the two façades keep their original attributes. Corpo Atelier changed almost nothing there. Aside from the two square windows cutting through the cornice, the studio notes, it would have been exactly the same house.
Inside, the account stays just as flat. A couple of walls were demolished, some things were relocated elsewhere, and a pillar was introduced. Structurally the pillar is useless. It exists for dramatic purposes only, which is a rare thing for a studio to admit and rarer still to build.
Where the pillar meets the roof structure something appears to happen. A series of organically shaped cuts moves across the space in apparent randomness, interrupting the excessive whiteness of the room and revealing the wooden structure previously concealed. The overall room looks sort of accidental. As if the cuts had occurred naturally. As if it is a ruin. As if the plaster had given in and collapsed onto the floor, gradually, over time. It didn't.
