São Lourenço do Barrocal

Few places embody history and a sense of belonging quite like São Lourenço do Barrocal. Set in the heart of Portugal’s Alentejo region, the estate is a living landscape shaped over millennia—home to 16 Neolithic dolmens, silent witnesses of human presence for over 7,000 years. For more than two centuries, the land has remained in the hands of a single Portuguese family, its rhythms preserved by generations of care. Today, it is a working estate where cattle roam, horses graze, and over 75 species of birds share the land with native flora and fauna.

At the heart of this remarkable setting, a once-ancient farming village has been carefully transformed into a luxury retreat, one that honors its rural past while embracing a refined, contemporary spirit. Studio Astolfi was invited to collaborate on this vision—bringing depth, narrative, and emotional texture to the space through design.

Our contribution centered on creating a large-scale cabinet de curiosités for Barrocal’s farm-to-table restaurant, an installation that anchors and magnifies the estate’s layers of memory: natural, anthropological, cultural, and familial. Working closely with the architecture and landscape, we curated found objects, crafted bespoke elements, and designed evocative vignettes that quietly tell stories—of place, of time, of people.

Every detail was chosen with intention. Rustic yet refined, tactile yet restrained, the pieces speak to a deep respect for authenticity. Nothing shouts—because in Barrocal, the silence is sacred. Design here must whisper.

Our aim was not to decorate, but to anchor emotion through design—to create a resonance between the guest and the landscape, where every element invites reflection. It is a place where memory lives not in monuments, but in materials. And where presence is felt most profoundly in the smallest gestures.