House Details is a technical architecture publishing house, created by architects and made for architects.

A product of great effort and attention on all levels, House Details makes the most complete architectural publications about houses worldwide, and it is the Portuguese architecture publishing house with the largest technical component ever. House Details’ publications have unique features, not only the books but also the magazine, when compared to other architecture periodical publications from all over the world, reuniting all of the different projects concerning each house - the architectural project (which makes up about 90% of the issue’s content), as well as of the projects concerning stability (engineering) and sanitation, among others.

All published architects, including the Pritzker Prize winners Álvaro Siza Vieira, Eduardo Souto de Moura, and Paulo Menes da Rocha, trusted us with their complete projects in the original Cad format, in an unprecedented act of absolute trust for which we are immensely and profoundly grateful.

Each and every one of our works is the result of meticulous, deeply exhaustive, and complex work, aiming to provide the reader with the best possible understanding of the matter at hand – for instance, on average, about 2000 hours of work are put into creating each issue of the House Details magazine, which includes hundreds of technical drawings. On several occasions, it is the House Details’ team that produces the technical drawings “to scale”, with due permission from the published architects. Because these drawings are printed to scale, ranging from 1/100 to 1/2 or 1/1 (mostly for the detail drawings), they require a lot of editing work.

The whole team is composed of architects that actively work in their field and simultaneously are collectors of books and architectural magazines, in some cases for a long time. The editor is also the owner of the bookshop Técnica Livraria, specialized in architecture, located in Lisbon. This bookshop allows for the whole team to have access to the best knowledge produced in the field, with all the technical innovation that comprises.

House Details magazine has led the way in the field of architectural publishing. It became the first architecture magazine in the world to publish a collector’s edition, with the Collector's Edition of House Details 5. In 2019, it became the first magazine in Portugal to publish an issue comprised of two volumes with House Details 4, dedicated to the work of Paulo Mendes da Rocha and Inês Lobo. In the same year, a special edition which included a box and other “extras” was put on sale. Eventually, later on, competition followed the example, at times more obviously than others.

The House Details magazine also has a social mission. For every issue and reissue, between 450 to 1000 euros are donated to people in need, as dully mentioned at the end of each magazine and on this website.

The philosophy of creating a magazine and its objectives

I hope to succeed in this assignment.

During a long period of a crisis in architecture, I got used to hearing complaints and daily accounts of difficult lives. At the bookshop, I began to let the people borrow books, and pay later, letting them read the books at the coffee shop esplanade next door or even refusing payments from clients whom I knew well and trusted, in an attempt to make things less difficult for them although, the bookshop was not doing well at the time.

I was always very impressed by the enormous efforts made by some of my colleagues and the fact that their merits were never recognised.

This compilation is therefore a small contribution in an endeavour to be of use in the following three ways:

1. To disclose some unknown, or less known Portuguese architects who have greatly impressed me, some by their extreme dedication and true love for the profession, others by being bearers of unusual skills and yet others for a special way they think about people and architecture.

2. To introduce into the market an architectural magazine with greater technical character displaying more detailed projects.

3. On buying this magazine, you will see how you will have just contributed monetarily to an institution and to the people who are identified at the end.

Thank you very much for this

I wish that everything goes well for you on a professional level and above all, on a personal level.

I wish everything goes well for you.

Nuno Teixeira

Editor