Architect Ernesto Pereira debuts his first architectural creation, the SilverWoodHouse in Mindelo, Portugal.

Ernesto Pereira has created a beach home for two in the coastal town of Mindelo, Portugal. The house, referred to as the SilverWoodHouse, is Pereira's debut architectural project. The space he shaped is open and bright with timber-clad cutawats and takes into consideration not only the natural surroundings of the house, but also the house’s inhabitants.

Surrounded as a child by carpenters and masons, Ernesto Pereira grew up with an understanding of construction. This led him to eventually create his own home, learning by way of making mistakes. The couple, Marisa and Rui, who now reside in the SilverWoodHouse, found Pereira by walking past his home and simply inquiring.

The project for the SilverWoodHouse began as the remodeling of a previous structure, one that Ernesto describes as “a soulless house of typical construction”. Without any budget limit or deadline, Pereira set out to create Marisa and Rui’s personalized home.

Blocked off from the street by a starkly geometric solid white fence, the majority of the house is covered inside and out by diagonally laid wood slats. Covered in the same detail, the doors to the house are perfectly camouflaged amongst their backdrop. Around the side of the home, there is a hallway that leads to another door. Here, each wall, ceiling, and floor, is laid with the same thin diagonal lines, which allows the space to feel transformative and in motion.

The interior design is bright and open, with much of the light filtering in from the outside. The rest of the light in the home comes from a few sparse long and thin fluorescents encased inside of equally long wooden boxes laid about the ceiling. Keeping the theme of the beach tones alive, most of the interior is covered either in light sandy shades of wood or blank walls of white.

The continuity of the beach theme obviously plays a roll not only in the architecture, but also in the landscaping. Each plant, carefully laid about the property resides inside a rocky sandbox. These sandboxes act as a reminder of the kind of wild shrubbery that grows naturally out of sand dunes.

After seeing the completed work and the home that they would be living in, Marisa and Rui wrote to Ernesto to proclaim that, “any attempt to adjectives falls short of the final experience of contemplation”. SilverWoodHouse would be a feat for any designer, but it is particularly fascinating given that it is Ernesto’s Pereira’s first.

Photography by João Morgado