A family house emptied back to its walls: one long room facing south, oak wherever a hand lands.
We shape houses and the ground around them — from the first survey to the last planted thing.
See the workLOAM Studio®
Since 2015 we have finished 74 projects across northern Portugal — apartments in Porto, houses in the Douro valley, two small hotels and rather more gardens than we had planned on.
Two architects, a garden designer and a joiner who has been with us since the second year. Eight projects run at a time, which is why we ask about the planting on the first visit and not at the end.
About the studio
A family house emptied back to its walls: one long room facing south, oak wherever a hand lands.
Eleven hundred square metres of dry slope, replanted to survive a Douro August without a hose.
A flat roof over the river turned into the room the flat never had, under a pergola sized to July.
One bathroom, six months, local schist in three thicknesses. A window removed, a skylight given back.
A 1970s house taken back to its frame, with a terrace cut into the slope behind it.
Forty square metres between four walls, three of them somebody else's. Shade, one tree, a table of eight.
Layouts first: where the doors go, where the light lands, and which walls are honestly load-bearing. Then joinery drawn piece by piece, materials specified by name, and lighting planned before the electrician arrives rather than after.
A garden is the only part of a house that gets better while you ignore it.
They asked about the garden on the first visit, before the kitchen. A year on, that turns out to have been the whole point.
The first visit is free and takes about two hours. We arrive with a tape measure and leave you a written scope, whether or not you go ahead.