Located on the Estrada Regional, in S. Miguel Arcanjo, the so named Casa do Ouvidor of S. Roque, integral part of the inventory of the Património Imóvel dos Açores, was for a long time in ruins.

As it is common in this region, the construction limits the road and frees the terrain for agricultural exploration. The existence of consecutive platforms at inferior heights, in order to overcome the striking inclination, conceals the nearest landscape from us, creating the illusion that the whole set floats.

Accessible by the balcony of the upper floor, the two floors structure, originally in L, is finalized in that floor by an oven and a fig tree that transform it into a U. An annex and an enormous tank finish the set and resolve the disparity between the entry floor and the patio.

The proposal contemplated the adaptation of the main construction into two two-bedroom residential units and the annex into one more of that type. Trying to maintain as much as possible the reading of the original constructions, there were still implemented, however, small outer and interior areas necessary for a rational use of the house and the mill.

Patios for obtaining lighting and ventilation, areas for kitchens or bedrooms, the receding of the structure for the preservation of the fig tree, these are interventions of easy perception, since they clearly take chances on a contemporary language, albeit susceptible to integration.

Also in the cover the new construction is evident, given that it is autonomous, despite its half round clay roof tiles and having two sides.

Bearing the patent state of degradation of the whole, the construction was set apart and all stones numbered for later reassembly. In the lower floor the walls that sustained the grounds remained, consolidated by the nailing of a steel mesh and the addition of a concrete wall that filled the interstices and the joints of the existing walls.

On the first floor the walls were rebuilt as well, but no longer making use of the second concrete layer.

The cover’s wooden structure enacts the reproduction of the traditional and visible system, albeit painted.

Based on this information and on the observation of other houses of erudite influence (namely by the sea in the Área de Paisagem Protegida da Cultura da Vinha da ilha do Pico), the building kept this duality of the original bodies and differentiates itself from the new construction, which is completely plastered; for the mill, the duality arises with the plastered expansion, since the existing structure kept its rudimentary character, in irregular basalt stonework. The framework, always in white painted wood and with oil paint, shows its origins through drawings and differentiated typologies.

A new body, in red, marks the intervention and the repurposing of the set, open to whomever wants to enjoy the magnificent landscape over the Pico/S. Jorge canal. Despite the small dimensions, its differentiating character also grants it an actor’s role, for it references and inscribes the whole new set into the landscape.