Projects
These are properties in which iHome designed and installed the technology — automation, lighting control, audio and video, networks, security, electrical installation and energy systems. They are in Quinta do Lago, Vale do Lobo, Almancil, Vale do Garrão, Lagos, Praia da Luz, Palmares and Tavira: private houses, developments, and a hotel.
Two of them are award-winning. Lote 21, Alma do Mar in Lagos won European Best Lighting Project at the Control4 annual awards for 2019. Dunas Douradas Beach Villas won the Prémio Projeto KNX at the Prémios KNX Portugal 2020. Both are described here.
A note on names. Developments are named, because a development belongs to its promoter and naming it exposes nobody. Private houses are not named, even where the architect publishes them, because the name of a house is the name of a family. Where a house appears below it is identified only by locality and by the studio that designed it.
A note on the photographs. They were taken for the architects and for the site supervision, not for us, and they are published here with permission and with the credits those companies show on their own sites. Each is credited and linked below.
Lote 21, Alma do Mar — Lagos
A house on the clifftop at Alma do Mar, above the Atlantic at Lagos. iHome carried out the electrical design and the installation.
This is the project that won European Best Lighting Project at the Control4 annual awards for 2019. More on the award.
The photographs repay looking at in order. The first two show the finished house. The rest show the same house during construction — conduit and cable routes under the slab before the ceilings closed, first-fix boxes set before the screed, the structure going up over the sea. That is the stage at which a lighting installation is actually decided. By the time a house is photographed for a magazine, every decision that mattered is buried in concrete.
Site supervision and photography: NG Engenharia
Dunas Douradas Beach Villas — Almancil
A development of contemporary villas between Vale do Lobo and Quinta do Lago, a few hundred metres from the beach. iHome designed and installed the KNX system across the development.
This is the project that won the Prémio Projeto KNX at the Prémios KNX Portugal 2020 — the national awards of the Portuguese KNX Association, judged on engineering rather than on how much of any brand was specified. In the preceding edition the same category went to a hospital. More on the award.
Architecture: JSH Algarve
Palácio de Tavira — a hotel in the historic centre
A palace in the historic centre of Tavira, rebuilt as a hotel between 2023 and 2025 for UPI Portugal. iHome carried out the technology installation.
Hospitality is a different discipline from a private house. A hotel is operated by staff who change, has to be serviced without closing rooms, and needs central control as well as a guest control that works without instructions. In a building of this age none of the usual routes for cable exist — every one has to be agreed with the architect and the builder while the walls are open. This is the first hotel on this page, and it is the reason the sentence about hospitality elsewhere on this site is no longer just a claim.
Architecture: Fragmentos · Construction: MAE — Marques Antunes Engenharia
Palmares Signature Villa — Meia Praia, Lagos
A villa at Palmares Ocean Living & Golf, above Meia Praia at Lagos, designed by RCR Arquitectes — Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta, who received the Pritzker Prize in 2017. Built 2020–2021. iHome carried out the technology installation.
Architecture of this kind leaves nowhere to hide equipment. A grille, a keypad, a speaker or a sensor either belongs to the surface it sits on or it spoils it, and that is settled with the architect long before anything is fixed to a wall. It is the most demanding brief a technology installer gets, and the least visible when it is done properly.
Architecture: RCR Arquitectes · Construction: MAE — Marques Antunes Engenharia
Reserva, Quinta do Lago
A development in the heart of the Algarve golden triangle, published with multi-room audio throughout. iHome worked on the technology installation.
Architecture: João Cabrita
PLUZ Premium Living — Luz, Lagos
A development currently under construction in Luz. Electrical installation and automation by iHome, specified with the building rather than added to it — which is the only stage at which the cabling, the circuits and the control can still be designed together.
Architecture: Mário Martins
Private house — Lagos
A private house on the coast at Lagos. We do not name private residences: a development belongs to its promoter, but a house belongs to the family living in it.
Architecture: Mário Martins · Photography: Fernando Guerra [FG+SG]
Private house — Quinta do Lago
Contemporary house in Quinta do Lago, with wide glazing and a strong relationship between inside and out — the kind of architecture where lighting, shading and climate control have to be planned before the walls close, because there is nowhere to hide equipment afterwards.
Architecture: Maider Neto Architecture
Private house — Lagos
A private house near Lagos, built 2019–2021. Technology installation by iHome.
Architecture: Mário Martins Atelier · Construction: MAE
Private house — Lagos
A private house in Lagos, built 2020–2021. Technology installation by iHome.
Architecture: Mário Martins Atelier · Construction: MAE
Private house — Praia da Luz, Lagos
A private house at Praia da Luz, in the PLUZ development, under construction 2024–2026. Technology installation by iHome — the same development as the one further up this page, this time a single house within it.
Architecture: Mário Martins Atelier · Construction: MAE
Private house — Praia da Luz, Lagos
A private house at Praia da Luz, built 2023–2024. Technology installation by iHome.
Architecture: Jutta Hoehn — JSH Algarve · Construction: MAE
Private house — Quinta do Lago
Private residence in Quinta do Lago.
Architecture: JSH Algarve
Private house — Quinta do Lago
Private residence in Quinta do Lago.
Architecture: JSH Algarve
Private house — Vale do Lobo
Private residence in Vale do Lobo.
Architecture: Jutta Hoehn — JSH Algarve
Private house — Palmares, Lagos
A private house at Palmares, Lagos, built 2022–2023. Technology installation by iHome.
Architecture: Áreacôr Projectos e Interiores · Construction: BGE — Behagel Group Engenharia
Private house — Palmares, Lagos (under construction)
A private house at Palmares Ocean Living & Golf, under construction 2025–2027. Technology installation by iHome, specified with the building.
Architecture: Mário Martins Atelier · Construction: MAE
On site now
One Green Way — Quinta do Lago. A gated development of 90 residences on plot AL3, alongside the North Course. iHome carried out the KNX installation. Works are under way.
There are no photographs of this one here yet, and there is a reason worth stating: what we do is finished and buried before a building is ready to be photographed. When the development is complete and the promoter publishes it, we will ask to show it properly.
What is not here yet
The Lote 21 set above is the exception on this page, and it is the reason that project comes first: it shows the work during construction, which is the only time most of it is visible at all.
Everything else was photographed by architectural photographers, for the architect: exteriors, daylight, empty rooms. Those images show the building, not the installation. It is the honest limitation of the rest of this page, and we would rather say so than imply otherwise.
The photographs still missing are the ones taken at night, with the lighting scenes running, and inside a cinema at reference calibration. We are taking them now, on site.
Talk to us
If you are building or renovating in the Algarve, the cheapest moment to decide any of this is before the first cable is pulled. Call (+351) 289 090 900 or email geral@ihome.pt.