Catching up with Noé and Ambre
Originally designed by Portuguese architect Conceição da Silva, with interiors, furniture and lighting developed in close collaboration with his wife, Carmo Valente, the honey-hued modernist dwelling in the seaside area of Dafundo and Cruz Quebrada is now the family home of French designer Noé Duchaufour-Lawrance, owner of Lisbon-based design studio and gallery Made In Situ, and his partner Ambre Jarno, the behind Maison Intègre, the Burkina Faso-based design studio and bronze-casting foundry known for their contemporary objects using the ancestral lost-wax technique.
Noé first encountered the house soon after arriving in Portugal, before he was ready to buy—and before he knew Lisbon as he knows it today. Years later, while he and Ambre were searching for a place to settle and begin a project together, it returned to them almost by chance. This was four years ago. What followed was nearly two years of restoration, a process that involved replacing the essential systems, repairing the original furniture and artworks, and carefully studying the details that made the house such a particular endeavour: the warm timber, the brass fittings, the angled windows, shifting levels, and the close relationship with the outside.
How did you first come across the house?
Ambre: It’s a funny story because this was the first house Noé visited when he arrived in Portugal. He wasn’t properly settled here yet, but he had heard that it was available off-market. He came to see it while he was looking for a flat in Lisbon, and his reaction was immediate: he thought, My God, places like this exist? But he wasn’t ready to buy at that point.
Noé: It was also outside central Lisbon, and I had only just arrived. Naturally, I thought I needed to live in the city centre. It seemed easier when I was still getting to know Lisbon. I assumed the house had been sold, so I began looking elsewhere.
Ambre: He spoke about many houses he’d seen over the years, but never mentioned this one. Then, during Covid, we were living in Lapa and enjoying it very much, but we were looking for somewhere truly special, a place where our family could settle, and where we could undertake a project together. After a lot of searching, I spoke to a woman who said she might have something for us. I sent Noé the link and he recognised it immediately. We visited as soon as we could, and then we made an offer.
What did you discover about the house and its original architect?
Noé: We met the owner after the visit. His son had shown us around. The house was designed by Conceição Silva, one of Portugal’s most important architects of the 1960s. He created Hotel do Mar (Sesimbra), several shops, and a number of houses, and he was an extraordinarily creative person.
We did a great deal of research before buying it, because we wanted to understand the political and cultural context around him. There had been an attempt on his life outside the house after the Revolution, apparently because some people assumed that, as an architect working on major projects, he must have been close to the Estado Novo authorities. But that was not the case at all. Everything we learned suggested the opposite: he was open-minded, inventive, and had a lot of innovative ideas.
Ambre: You feel it when you enter the house; you feel that the person who made it was very creative.
Did you feel an immediate connection to it?
Ambre: Very much so. It has incredibly good energy.
Noé: We loved it immediately. I had seen it once before, but when we returned together there was no question. By then, I was ready to leave Lisbon. I had lived in the city and felt I knew it better, while the centre was becoming busier and busier. Here, we’re at the end of the Tejo, just as it reaches the ocean. We’re slightly elevated, so we have an amazing perspective over the water. The house feels very warm inside, with all the wood and the light, but then you have the surrounding blue of the water outside. How do you experience that relationship between the interior and the landscape?
Noé: Yes, inside it feels almost like a cocoon, but full of light. Conceição Silva understood how to choreograph light. He opened windows to the east and west, so the house receives the sunrise and the sunset in different ways. It feels as if he had already lived there before drawing it. There were no digital renderings back then. He had to imagine, very precisely, what it would mean to inhabit each space.
Ambre: And Carmo Valente was essential to that vision. She worked with Conceição Silva on the furniture, the lighting and so much of the interior. At that time, women’s contributions to architecture and design were too often overlooked. They were called the “assistant”, even when they were integral to the work. It felt important for us to recognise her role and continue what she began.
The house seems to dissolve a sort of boundary between interior and exterior. Was that something you wanted to preserve?
Noé: Absolutely. We worked very carefully with the proportions of the terraces, the covered porch and the windows. Some of the windows are set at a 45-degree angle, so they don’t simply frame a view head-on. At certain moments, the glass becomes almost like a mirror. There’s also a small interior garden, a tiny courtyard garden that brings nature into the centre of the home. We have an olive tree in the middle of the house. Upstairs, the living room opens onto a terrace garden. You’re never completely enclosed.
Ambre: I normally don’t like to stay inside a house for an entire day. But here, it’s different. You’re between inside and outside.
Noé: The house is always breathing. Even during the heatwaves, it never feels too hot. The air moves through it naturally. Today, without air conditioning, many houses become unbearable, but here, the architecture creates comfort.
Tell me more about the wood interiors. Much of it seems to be original.
Noé: Most of it is original, and we restored it. We changed all the windows, keeping some frames and replacing others where we had to. The timber was a complicated point, because when we restored furniture or made new furniture, we needed to use the same wood. Much of it is Riga Velha, an old pine wood from northern Portugal. The ceiling upstairs is incredible. All the visible timber structure is made from very long, single pieces, some more than seven metres long, maybe eight, or maybe even twelve. You can imagine the kind of trees they needed to find. To make a project like this today would be impossible, or very, very expensive. But everything is in the details.
What kind of details did you find yourselves studying most closely?
Noé: There are little moments everywhere. Doors can be secured with small brass pieces; the separation between our bedroom and the living room is handled with a beautifully discreet brass element. The house is very open, with everything connected, but that also means you have to find ways of creating privacy. We designed some new elements for our children and for our bedroom in the language of the original architecture. We made a sliding door using the same timber and pattern as the existing panelling. There are cupboards with brass handles designed specifically for the house. Even objects as small as the keys were considered by the original architect.
Ambre: It took an enormous amount of time. We measured everything and tried to understand the exact logic of the materials, the finishes, the joinery. At one point, we were told a particular surface had been made with three or four layers of an old technique, so we reproduced it in that way. Afterwards, we discovered that this was not, in fact, how it had originally been done. But by then, the work was complete.
Noé: A very beautiful and expensive mistake.
The former owner came back after the restoration. What was that like?
Amber: We invited him, his son and his daughter to the house for dinner after the refurbishment. It was very funny. He was going around and saying, Oh, look at this. Look at that. We knew all the details because we had studied them. He went into the bedrooms and actually liked them. It felt very natural for him.
Noé: That was the moment we thought, OK, we did good. We changed a lot without actually changing it.
Ambre: Without changing the spirit.
Noé: That was really the hardest part. You connect to a place through emotion. What we didn’t want to change was that emotional connection. The energy of the house had to stay the same.
How did you approach the art and objects you brought into the house?
Ambre: The house had always been full of things, almost like a museum, so he had to find the right balance. We wanted to bring the things we love, but also remain faithful to the atmosphere of the house. We found old books and archives with photographs showing African art in the house. I work in Africa, so that felt like a real connection. We decided to include a few pieces, but it took time to find the right ones and put them in the right places.
And the work is still ongoing?
Noé: Always. It’s a bit like a boat. Every winter, there are big storms and rain comes into the house somewhere, even after we restored it.
Ambre: It feels like a living creature that experiences the seasons and the weather as we do.
What still surprises you about it?
Noé: When you arrive from the street, you don’t understand the volume of the house at all. There’s a simple entrance door, with a beautiful brass hand to knock on it. From outside, you don’t really see what’s there. Then you enter and there are stairs going up and down, and you start understanding the whole volume of the house. I like that: inconspicuous from outside, then a whole, abundant world inside.
