Casa No Tempo: The Possibilities of Inhabiting

I see my work as a form of visual research.
I’m not just interested in documenting architecture as a static object, but in understanding the emotional aspect that inhabits a space.

Casa No Tempo is a milestone in this research.
Located in the vast plains of Alentejo, this project by Silent Living and Manuel Aires Mateus possesses a mysterious calm.
My goal was to escape the "cold" vision of architecture to focus on the atmosphere: capturing how a space breathes and protects us.

To do this, I collaborated with the dancer Elena Castellanos.
We used her movement to measure the emotional aspects of the space designed by the architect.

Cameras: BlackMagic Cinema Camera, Fujifilm X-T3, DJI Mavic Air 2.
Software: Adobe Photoshop, Capture One, Davinci Resolve, Adobe Audition.

Manuel Aires Mateus once said architecture creates a "structure that makes life desirable".

I believe there is a tension between the stone that endures and the life that moves through it.
One of the reasons I work through the spectrum of still image and film is precisely to capture this duality: the idea of something that remains (photography) versus something that moves through time (film).

In this series, we tried to document the honest identity of the place, observing how ephemeral sensations (like light hitting a texture) gain importance when frozen in an image.

More than in a specific scene, I felt it in the process of our stay.

We spent our time trying to understand the layers that merge in the present moment, observing how ephemeral some sensations can be (like the morning light hitting a texture or the sound of the wind) and the importance they gain when you realize a moment will not be repeated.

This project confirmed that my interest lies less in the spectacle of architecture and more in its capacity to support life and well-being.
It is an invitation to connect stories of the past with a contemporary vision.

Credits
Visual Research & Direction: Derek Pedrós
Movement: Elena Castellanos
Architecture: Manuel Aires Mateus & Project: Silent Living