Exceptional Homes

Vasco Vieira (Johannesburg 1969) graduated in architecture from the University of Witwatersrand, moved to Portugal in 1994 and in 2003 founded ARQUI+. This monograph serves as an overview of his career over the last ten years and presents a selection of twenty works for single-family dwellings designed and built in the Algarve. What we have here is a rationalist architecture that highlights not only the rectilinear plans and sensuous curves but also the cult of nature as shown here integrated through the fantastic views from the houses to the landscape. We might ask how far we can talk of a South African influence in his work. Maybe that is precisely the reason for the need to fi nd a new strategy combining acquired with current-day knowledge, in which the result may indicate a direction beginning with a fracture. If that is so, all these projects, which are linked by a strong desire for innovation as expressed in the shapes and how they are built, have an inherent exceptionality. All combined with the wish to respect man as the sender and user.