Quinta Sombra.

The estate sits on a steep bend of the river, its slopes stepped into dry-stone terraces two centuries old. The owners wanted twelve rooms for guests without a building that would stand over the valley.

Our answer stacks the guesthouse down two terraces in four glass volumes, each no wider than the terrace it rests on. From the river, the stone walls still read first and the glass second.

The volumes turn around a reflecting pool, thirty-two metres long, laid on the estate's old threshing floor. Its surface is level with the terrace edge, so at night the lit rooms double in the water and the vines seem to stand in it.

The lounge, the loggia and the dining room face the pool on the lower level; the guest rooms sit above, each with a glazed corner looking down the valley.

Each room opens to a deep loggia shaded by a vine pergola, trained from the estate's own rootstock. Rainwater from the roofs tops up the pool, which in turn cools the air drawn through the lounges on summer evenings.

The glass is set back behind deep oak reveals and the thick stone of the terrace walls, so the rooms keep the day's heat out until evening and need no air conditioning even in August.

The entry was one of five shortlisted in an invited competition, and the jury's decision is expected in early 2027.

Win or not, the owners have already started rebuilding the terrace walls in the way we proposed, stone by stone, with their own vineyard team.