Neto House

A single stair runs through the centre of the house and organises the whole plan. It connects every level, but its mass also separates rooms that would otherwise share a wall — the main bedroom on the top floor, for instance, is set apart from the others simply by standing on the far side of it. Lowering the basement floor and opening the roof void bring the whole building up to a livable ceiling height without changing its outline from the street, and clearing the garden at the back does the same for light, letting a new patio and a skylight cut daylight down through floors that previously had very little.

At ground level, a garage and entrance hall sit as a buffer before the stair begins, with an office looking down through a small opening onto the patio and the living room below. The basement becomes one open space split by the stair, living space against the garden on one side and the dining and service rooms on the other, kept out of the light rather than in front of it. Upstairs, three bedrooms share a hall — two toward the street with a study between them, and one running the full width of the rear façade, kept private by the staircase’s mass rather than by an extra wall.

Materially, the house is split the same way its plan is. The street façade keeps its original materials, as the protected zone requires; everything behind it, including the rear wall facing the garden, is rebuilt in exposed concrete, aligned with the backs of the neighbouring buildings so the block still reads as continuous. The roof is rebuilt to its original shape and tile, with the addition of the skylight that, together with the patio, does most of the work of making the house liveable.