In Cazas do Pico the main intervention purpose was to preserve the “soul” of houses with a story, although modest (but for “Casa das Barcas”, listed and erudite in its simplicity), emphasizing the natural patine of materials used by people that, living isolated in an island, found and transmitted the best ways to use the available materials (stone and wood, sometimes brought by the sea, like the one used in the bench in the photo), in their touching fight for survival in an extremely adverse environment of rare beauty.
The only inovation (besides modern wcs), was the opening of one large window in each house (in walls that had to be rebuilt), making the fruition from the inside of a view that could not be ignored prevail to the former only purpose of protection from the outside.
