The streets of Lisbon are lined with numerous buildings weathered by time. This “poetics of ruin” has become increasingly pronounced since owners of damaged buildings found ways to circumvent a law requiring them to renovate and preserve the façades of existing structures… unless the state of decay is so severe that any restoration is impossible. In recent years, however, Lisbon has become an increasingly attractive city. Many investors have flocked there. It is on an abandonned plot of land, where nothing remains of the former building, that a young family has chosen to build their home - and perhaps their life. This project raises the question of what happens after a building has been completely destroyed. How does a new house integrate into the urban fabric and into historical continuity? Just as the walls of Roman villas were adorned with frescoes depicting natural landscapes, like those at Villa Livia in Rome, the façades of Lisbon buildings were covered with Azulejos - decorative ceramic tiles featuring floral or geometric patterns. By pushing this type of decoration to its extreme while retaining traces of the vegetation that has reclaimed the site, the project for this house has taken its current form. The house consists of three levels, each concrete slab allowing climbing vegetation to grow along the adjoining walls. Simple undulating glass panels along these walls separate the interior from the exterior. Nature and its movements become part of the life within the house. This undulation continues onto the street-facing façade, where the only decoration comes from the sun’s path and the shadows it casts across the surface.