One of my latest projects is this kitchen refurbishment in a 100 years old building in Lisbon. The transformation has just been completed. The chalenge was to balance modernity and tradition. What do you think of it?

My website "Henrique Barros-Gomes, architect" was released a little more than 6 months ago. The English language version was also online less than a month after.

Shortly after launching the website I started this blog, which began as a way to go updating the site with new content and eventually evolve into what is now almost a necessity to materialize, in writing, reflections and thoughts that I have on my freelance work as an architect but also about many other things.

This effort to write interesting and potentially compelling content has become a pressing need, which I miss when I have no time to do so. Apart from making me regain the need to write (which I probably always had) it also allowed me to organize my thoughts in a much better way on an infinity of subjects. And also to identify the issues that people who read me appreciate the most, by the feedback they provide.

Today there are some free tools, such as "Google Analytics" that allow even a layman like me to understand how Internet users interact with his site. What they see, when, how long and where they accessed the site. In the latest version of the program this data is even available in real-time. If for instance someone in Singapore enters my site I have that information immediately while viewing "Google Analytics". This useful tool has allowed me to draw some conclusions:

- After the initial interest, it is really in the times when I publish texts on the blog, I present new projects or refer news about their publication in the press that the website records higher turnout. Of course that, as I mentioned in one of my first posts, the disclosure in social networks helps to maximize the impact of all this information.

- In this short time since it is online, the site was visited by almost 3000 people from about 60 countries, just over half of which of course from Portugal. It is a matter of great satisfaction that so many people from such varied backgrounds, have an interest in my work or my ideas. And that so many people have been monitoring my website and interacting with me. This reinforces my wish to continue what I have done so far and encourages me to improve, to increase my level of personal demand.

And now the question that is surely in the mind of many people reading this text:

- Okay, this is all very interesting, but is reflected in more architectural work?

The answer isn’t easy. Or rather, it is: Yes and no.

Yes, because the reality is that I've had some work I wouldn't have if I hadn't made such a great effort to disclosure. And I had several surveys to potential orders from people who felt empathy for what I do and that may result in concrete work.

No, because in the end, I can't say yet that I'm with lots of work as a result of my presence on the Internet.

But the fact is, these days, almost no one is exactly with a lot of work, as you know. And as an optimist (and strong-willed) I am, I believe that persistence will eventually bear fruit. As such, let us be seeing round here!

One of the worst nightmares an architect can have (although honestly the lack of work usually supplants this kind of trouble) occurs when a customer asks for a Frankenstein-house.

This situation is characterized by the wish that the house we are about to think incorporates several images, taken from magazines, situations the customer lived, places he visited, but above all taken out of context.

There would be nothing wrong with all this if the said images were understood as inspirations, worries that otherwise the client could not transmit. The real problem arises when we try to incorporate these desires in the project we're doing, in an integrated and coherent way and we are told - But I want the fireplace to be exactly the same as I showed you, and the BBQ, the ladder and the pool too. Maybe you didn’t pay due attention to the images I gave you?

What could be a perfectly legitimate set of concerns, to make us think and guide our efforts to maximize the response that we give to the expectations of those who hire us, becomes an imposition of using, in an ad hoc basis, add-on images, which were designed for a specific and necessarily different context and in most cases it's not possible to articulate them in an interesting way, without falling into the grotesque. As in the story of Mary Shelley, we will produce a monster made ​​from pieces or parts taken from other objects and sites.

I think this problem lies often in the preconceived idea that some people have of what their home should be, built by accumulation. When they see an image they like, they just think that one day they will replicate it in their house. What they sometimes don't understand is that more important than reproducing the image is to realize its essence, the concept behind it, which is valid and potentially rewarding. The uncritical reproduction of an image can result in a cartoonish reality. Most of the times results so, because scale, landscaping, climate and the sequence of spaces are usually not reproducible.

The funny thing is that when the said customer sees houses in which the architect had more freedom, manages to enjoy them. Without possibly being aware, makes sense to him the coherence, balance and harmony. The quality of space.

This question of how some people think that their house should be has been extensively studied and is often compared with the relationship that the same people have with their cars: While waiting for a car to be as modern as possible and to look like the latest model, they rather want  their house to be equal to that of their grandparents, to don’t look too weird or different and above all that doesn't resemble anything but a home.

I would like to realize how is a house supposed to look like. Does anyone have a clue?

Much has been writen on this aphorism I've seen to be attributed to several authors, from the predictable Mies, to Einstein or to Renaissance’s Michelangelo. It is also discussed if this will be the original sentence or, rather, if it’s the devil that’s in the details. I confess that in this case I don’t care a lot about semantic rigor or scientific correction.

When I hear this motto, I always think that it applies to my area of ​​work. It seems indeed to have been conceived thinking about architecture. And it makes perfect sense to me to be so.

The truth is that details are really important and what often distinguishes good and bad architecture. They certainly make it easier to distinguish what is or isn’t architecture, and what is intentional from what is casuistic.

Each project has its own logic, which reveals itself at some stage in the creative process and that should, in my view, be followed in an objective manner, in order to provide consistency. A good solution in one context may not be so in another, so you should leave for each project without preconceived ideas, exploring the best possible way the rules intrinsic to the path you are exploring. I do not mean that you should always be trying to discover the wheel, on the contrary. I believe that most of the things are already invented, our job is to recombine them in the best and most appealing way that we possibly can, given the context and the narrative line that we are exploring at each moment.

Naturally, when an architect finds and successfully tests a solution to a constructive problem, he tends to repeat this response in other projects. I have nothing against this option and I already did it several times. It seems to me though that when said repetition does not fit the rules of a project and nevertheless is used, becomes a language tic, an alien to the process. Even if it is a hallmark of a particular author, it acquires a negative connotation. Apart from that I believe that a work need not be immediately recognized as being of a particular architect. I think that different problems should have diverse answers. The thread of a creator’s journey must be the quality at every moment, not the aesthetic analogy between his works.

When you visit a well achieved architectural work, there are often small details that attract the attention by their proportion, correctness, originality and quality afforded to the whole. There is a holistic quality in these situations, in which each piece contributes to a harmonious and coherent whole and is inextricably linked to it. It is an integral part of its DNA. These details make the difference and also make perfect sense. They exalt the artistic component of that work, inducing us to an elevation in our mood. They are, in my opinion, manifestations of the sacred. They make me believe that it is indeed God who is in the details and not the competition...

My dream house in the city I live is right in its center.

Centrally located, it will be decentered in relation to the busiest streets. The house will also have some space around it. It may perhaps be located in a small square or plaza. It will be possible to leave the house walking and quickly get to the subway, find shops, restaurants and cafes open all day, anytime. And gardens. In fact, for the dream to be complete, the house will have a small walled garden, where a large old deciduous tree will remind us of the season we are in and will make us feel the passage of time. A fountain of running water made of crudely finished stone blocks will gain patina as we age, muttering a crystalline solid rumor. A sunburned wooden deck, adjacent to the living room, will invite us to celebrate Lisbon’s hot summer nights with unforgettable dinners. And a very carefully kept tiny garden will allow us to feel the fresh grass growing under our bare feet. A luxury.

It will not be possible to categorize my dream house according to the typology. Compartmented on the one hand, but with great fluidity of space, on the other, it will not easily show the boundary between social and private areas. If it will have the dreamed size, it will be flexible enough to fit the needs of its inhabitants in each stage of their lives, varying the size and configuration of the private area, using retractable panels and walls.

Therefore, it can’t be too obvious, will have to have some complexity and the ability to surprise me every day. To me and to visitors who will hesitate, as if momentarily lost in there, fact that will always cause me a small, almost invisible smile of satisfaction. A maze of rooms, suggested labyrinth.

Being quite old, the house will be impeccably renovated, keeping only the most interesting elements of the original construction. A delicate and elegant refurbishment, aware of the past but with eyes in the future. Simultaneously ancient and contemporary. Basically, the best of both worlds. With high ceilings, will have somewhere a room with an even higher ceiling, catching the light from the top all the times so that we will always look up while passing by. And a mezzanine with a small office. A large wide window opened to the west, over the city, will reveal, in its background, the Tagus river. It will have broad and varied light to flood the white walls and warm up the floors made of large wooden boards. And it will be comfortable. Cool in the summer and mild enough in the winter to be hardly necessary to connect the heating system. I won’ t need air conditioning at all.

This is my dream house. How is yours?

Holidays are a time for travel. We all have done our memorable trips, which are as a reminder of good times, sometimes of external or interior discoveries. Some of these memories are marked for life.

Whenever I can, I make a trip to a different place, either from a long waiting list of destinations, or to a place I never really intended to go. Sometimes to a place I never heard of before. In part is this the charm of a trip, the discovery of something new, something which for us is of a formidable exoticism. Even though this exoticism only exists for us and other outsiders. Indeed, by definition, a place is only exotic to a stranger. There will always be someone for whom that place is familiar, sometimes too familiar.

The trips we do, whether for vacation or work, will enrich our experience, making us more educated and knowledgeable. And if we're lucky, more tolerant to the difference. They increase our experience and our intelligence.

Being rapidly transported to an exotic location has also the advantage to make us quickly forget the stress of the last days, and depart from of our daily lives. We have more to worry about! The exotic, in principle, always provides memorable moments and exciting holidays.

But there is another essential component to my holidays since childhood. Even if I manage to do a fantastic trip, I have to spend one or two weeks in Ericeira, a small coastal town north of Lisbon.

Although a small distance, this place has a completely different climate than the city where I live. If Lisbon has scorching summers, Ericeira is mild and fresh. Sometimes it is windy (sometimes too windy to be exact!). As a child, I used to spend three months of the year here.

Once known as a fishing center (fish and seafood continue to be excellent) is  best known today for Surf  related events. It has several beaches with beautiful and powerful waves and the only Portuguese integrating the ASP circuit lives here and here developed his skills.

It’s not easy to explain why an increasing number of people come to this town and these beaches every summer: It has an unstable and cool climate, morning mists, fogs in the afternoon, much less hours of sunshine, cool nights, cold water and beaches with rocks and strong waves. But it is certain that for the unconditional fans, this is the best place in the world, or at least the one we feel better. Turning off the car and get out into the street is a whole sensorial experience. The smell and freshness of the air immediately change our mood for the better. There is the added pleasure of finding, every summer, the same people with whom we grew up, many of them already having children, that are now our kids friends.

There is absolutely nothing exotic in this version of holidays. But there's a pleasant sense of familiarity, awareness of belonging to a place we associate with mainly happy times, the long days, the rash baths in huge waves, the endless summers. And being with some people we really care about.

This blog post is part of a blog-off series with a group of bloggers from different professions and world views, writing on the same subject. Check them out:

Most people, throughout life, go to a doctor whenever they have a health problem. And when they have legal problems naturally turn to an attorney. They do not think about cost savings, or in regarding alternative hypotheses, because they consider that these are serious issues that must be solved with the help of unquestionable and qualified professionals. But in relation to the space where they spend much of their lives and their most personal moments - their home - they often consider themselves to be perfectly independent in the process of taking decisions and determining the nature of the construction works to be done.

The truth is that when it comes to architecture, most people have an opinion and expresses it in the most diverse contexts. And in many cases, when the opportunity arises to materialize their dream, think they know exactly what they want and, above all, how they want it to be.

This fact, widely recognized and the subject of numerous studies, is observed both to build a home from scratch and to renovate an apartment.

Being able to build their own house is for many people, a dream come true. And as such should be seen. So why is sometimes entrusted to any person who presents himself as minimally capable, regardless of their formation, usually with the argument of a cheaper project fee? Designing a home is the essential exercise of architecture. It is both the most common and most tested program around the world and yet remains the more attractive by the ability to surprise us at every moment, with the recombination of the same old variables. There is no hiding – it is a huge responsibility to design a house. The decisions we make will intensively affect the daily lives of those people for an indefinite period of time, sometimes for the rest of their lives. We have the possibility to inspire, to provide comfort, to really improve their existence. If we are all different, why shouldn’ t  we have a house designed specifically for us?

And the place where our house will be built is crucial: How is it related to the sun and where does light come from? And as to the views? And with the surrounding context? And what do you feel out there? How does the earth smell, and how is the vegetation? Where do we look? How is the land modeled? All these factors, and many more, influence the response given by the architect on the project. It is still amazing how, the only time in life when one can probably achieve this dream, one can entrust this important task to someone completely unprepared ...

As for those who choose to buy existing buildings to renovate, I personally know many situations where people bought houses or apartments in poor state of repair, in need of major intervention, which could have provided excellent opportunities to correct functionally uninteresting situations, but above all to rethink the entire house based on their actual needs and desires. In some of these cases the house owners decided themselves, often advised only by the contractor, or inspired by decoration magazines, any intervention to be undertaken. And was the result bad? Well, not necessarily, but certainly could have had another level of excellence, elegance and exclusivity.

A classic mistake is, in my point of view, to think that a lot of money will be spend to hire a professional when it's so simple to paint some walls, change a few tiles or sanitary ware and voilá ... which is a double mistake: Not only such professional help is less expensive than you think, but it can also make all the difference in the final product.

As a simple exercise, if you count how much you spend to buy land or a used house and how much you will spend in construction yet to be made, and consider all this investment as a whole, it is easy to see that the architect fees will be a small slice of the total. However, the result will be totally different. A good architect will think the space in an integrated manner and will be able to customize it and optimize it to the customer’s needs and aspirations, either present or future.

If the savings in the venture are a crucial concern, a competent architect will also be able to ensure a lower cost in the construction to be carried out. Even including architects' fees!

Good architecture is designed in an integrated and mostly customized way. It is tailor made. It's the difference between going to a ready-to-wear shop or to a tailor. There’s nothing wrong with a ready-to-wear shop, but if we could only have one suit, we would certainly prefer it to be made ​​by a tailor.

Having a house thought (or rethought) by an architect need not be a luxury. But to be so, it is an affordable luxury!

As some will know, about a year and a half ago my life had a major change. After almost 20 years working for other people in architectural offices, I began to work exclusively on my own behalf.

Building a name, a brand, find our own space, on top of a deeply negative conjuncture, is a big challenge, but can also be an opportunity. And it has costs even as we try to consolidate our way step by step, in a stoic and minimalist way.

The immediate consequence is that we have to learn to perform tasks that we traditionally would trust to others, especially if we were still working on a larger company. In my case this need, that has resulted in several specific cases, made me get down to business in the most focused and skillful way. Before presenting those examples and for the sake of honesty I must refer one of the main advantages of working for yourself: Time management is easier, ie we're on our own to decide how much time we devote to each task and when to perform it. Basically, we set our priorities. And of course, willingly or not, we can make decisions with complete autonomy.

I present some steps that constituted major challenges but not fewer opportunities:

Brand - After the initial priceless help of a team of corporate marketing consultants (whom I would earnestly recommend), that helped me establish my placement, to identify what distinguishes me and set the values I should transmit, the image of my office was designed by me. It was a hard and invisible work. Believe me, if something looks simple, it's likely to have given a lot more work than meets the eye.

Website - Until a few months ago I considered myself completely incapable of building a website. I knew the appearance that I wanted, but I always thought it was an inscrutable work aimed at cryptic experts. However, there are currently plenty of tools, mostly free, which dramatically simplify this task. It's still very laborious to reach an outcome that satisfies us, but It's also a possible task. The golden rule is, in my view, to religiously follow the "KISS principle" (look for the meaning on the net if don't know what this means. It's a pleasure to be pedagogic, in addition...) It's also easy to have a bilingual site. Just do a site identical to the 1st, introduce the 2nd language content and create links between them.

Social Networking and its integration - Here's an area in which I had, until less than a year ago, a heartbreaking ignorance. And if the first steps were timid, I'm now a convinced and active user of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, About me, Architizer, BranchOut, Foursquare, Startracker, I'm registered in Klout, Digg, Disqus and keep a few blogs, in addition to a website. It's important to relate all these tools together, gaining critical mass and feed them with content interesting enough for other users to want to follow our route. An important note: I swear that all these applications do exist!

Site maintenance and promotion – To create a website is, today, relatively quick and easy, in particular, I suppose, for those who are not obsessed with the graphic look of the thing. However, maintaining it is also tricky, especially if we want it to appear well placed in searches done on search engines like Google. A blog is important and continuously updating the site with new content also helps, but it's essential to learn a little about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Just look on the web. And it's this easy to transform a light and pleasant to read text into a nerd and encrypted moment! But for a self-made man to be, life isn't only made of pleasures ...

Promotion and publicity on other channels - for an architect, as I suppose that for other professionals, it's important that his work is disseminated among potential customers. In addition to all that we can do on the Internet - and we can do much – we have, in my point of view, two options: We can sit back waiting for someone to notice the unsurpassed qualities of our portfolio or we can roll up our sleeves and promote its dissemination on publications, general or from our area of influence, where we're interested to be disclosed. It costs nothing, apart from some sporadic stabs at our self-esteem, largely compensated by the times that our effort is fruitful.

A sound bet is also to hire a photographer specialized in architectural photography. Nowadays, at least in Portugal, the dissemination and promotion of photographed projects is part of the contracted service. When the photographer's agenda isn't compatible with the window of opportunity to photograph the project, a good option is to rent the photographic material that we lack (as a proper lens for interiors), get a solid tripod and throw ourselves into this task.

What I can say is that we value things differently when we do them ourselves ... and no doubt that we enrich and improve our skills on the course. And we can still be quite pleased with the results!

A few years ago I showed my older son a videoclip of the song 'All I Need' by Radiohead. I always loved the music of this band and when I saw the clip, which I find very beautiful, I thought he would like to see it. Student and practitioner of an instrument with an essentially classical repertoire, he is always open to learn about forms of musical expression different than the ones he hears in the conservatory. For those who do not know it, the video illustrates, in a screen divided in half, one day in the life of a first world’s boy and the same day lived by a group of child workers in some unidentified Asian country. This dichotomy between completely conflicting lives, with opposite degrees of difficulty and hardness, inevitably makes us think about issues such as the economic, social or cultural environment in which we are born and how it influences our lives and the opportunities that arise ahead. It also makes us relativize the apparent difficulties in everyday life and get the sense that, although at the time they appear to be insurmountable, under normal circumstances these problems are bridgeable with lesser or greater effort. In most cases, it is fair to say that the way we live depends essentially on the choices we make, adaptability we acquire and the level of demand that we impose on ourselves. We have or had the opportunities and for better or worse, we also have the free will to make of our lives what we want.

All these considerations are decidedly truer if our childhood was, in essence, similar with what is pictured on the left side of the screen in the video of Radiohead. I do not necessarily believe in determinism and I think that however obstacles life puts ahead of us, we can always aspire to something else, set higher personal goals and, why not, overcome them. We can even turn the page of particularly unhappy or painful situations and achieve objectives that may have seemed, at times, remote or absurd. That ambition, or aspirational quality, is essential to the realization of any project, whether personal or professional.

But I recognize that there may be circumstances where the influence of all that surrounds you can be so overwhelming as to cut any chance of realize your aspirations or even to have them. These are extreme situations in which what is at stake is the most basic daily survival. Many people around the world live in these conditions. Fortunately, I never had, nor did most people I know, to experience such extreme and miserable conditions. We may live in a particularly difficult time, discouraging or even depressive, but we move in a cocoon of comfort and well being that should allow us to relativize the difficulties. We also have the option to decide to change, risk, seek job opportunities elsewhere or in other fields of work . The adaptability I was speaking about. In the end, I think it's really a matter of perspective, to be able to achieve an objective weighing of the scales.

At the end of the video my son, then about 10 years old, told me he liked it very much, both the music and the images. Encouraged by his response I risked the obvious question: ‘With which of the realities presented in the video did he identified the most?’ His answer was not what I expected to hear and I confess the perplexity that I felt at the time. Probably influenced by the fact of being accustomed to having to make the bed, tidy the room and help with some household tasks, not always with evident pleasure, my son did identified himself with the hard everyday life of the child workers pictured on the right side of the screen.

When I could make him see the obvious injustice and absurdity of his answer, and how lucky he was to live how and where he lives, he changed, ashamed, his opinion.

Again, it's all a matter of perspective ...

Radiohead ‘All I need” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdrCalO5BDs

In the last few days I developed my social networking skills and became a more active user. In addition to Facebook, LinkedIn and Flickr, tools I already used, I'm on Twitter now, doing comments with the name HBG_architect.

Besides that, I'm also on about me. This app resumes all the information about me and how I relate to each social network.