text by Johanna Agerman for icon-eye

"I'm very partial to pop," says architect Pedro Gadanho. "I think that comes out in my work." His most recent project, a family home in Oporto in Portugal, demonstrates this penchant with bold and colourful details inspired by Transformers.

Against the white walls of the house the geometric shapes in lacquered MDF seem to have a life of their own. The turquoise (or what Gadanho calls “petrol-green") kitchen units spill out into the dining room area. A blood-red staircase projects into the living room, luring you upstairs to the sleeping quarters and a roof top window. A plainer staircase in white ushers you downstairs to the children's room.

The villa was originally made up of a single floor that Gadanho cleverly transformed into three storeys by excavating the shallow cellar and inserting a new ceiling on the entrance floor, creating space for a bedroom on top. “This way the living room works as a buffer between two private spaces," explains Gadanho, who has carefully considered the needs of the single father and his three children that lives here. It's a bachelor pad and play pen in one.