Casa das Freiras wins the International Architecture Awards

The Portuguese architectural studio Mario Martins, already winner of the Outstanding Property Awards 2020 and of the Architizer A+Awards 2021 with the project to upgrade a former car repair shop in the historical center of Lagos - “Casa Das Freiras”, won the International Architecture Awards 2021.

 

The award announced on August 17th by the Chicago Athenaeum - Museum of Architecture and Design, is an award for buildings and landscape interventions completed between 2019 and 2021 in all parts of the world, offering an important global overview of the current aesthetic direction in various areas: residential, commercial, religious, and corporate. During 2022, the itinerant exhibition “The City and the World” dedicated to all the winning architectures will be open in several European cities.

 

Stimulating emotions with architecture is the key to the work of Mario Martins, Portuguese architect from Lagos, who has always transformed space into a concrete entity, so that even emptiness becomes matter. The surfaces of this house have been treated with Archi+ Concrete by Novacolor, to emphasize the sobriety of the building and achieve a grey cladding similar to natural stone on both the floors and the plasterboard on the ceilings. This allowed to create a project with a strong sculptural character in the geometric shapes, which plays with sharp cuts allowing the passage of light and at the same time underline the beauty of these sculptural architectures.

 

Archi+ Concrete is a powdered lime-based plaster for indoor and outdoor use, formulated according to traditional rules. It is composed of hydrated lime, white concrete, carefully selected inerts and rheological modifiers to guarantee an excellent workability. The particular grain size curve of the product and the application of one or more layers of the acrylic-siloxane color wash Fase Silossanica, allow to obtain effects similar to “cement” and for this reason suitable in the most current and modern interior design works. The Archi+ line is characterized by the use of natural components with low emissions of volatile organic compounds. Novacolor, a brand of San Marco Group, works with a sensitive approach to sustainability and innovation, and since its early years has made significant progress eliminating the use of toxic substances and any solvent emissions from its products. For years, it has also been redesigning the production chain with a new approach based on the concept of “Biomass Balance” replacing fossil raw materials with biomass from agricultural waste.