Go2Madeira

First SIP Timber House build in Madeira

This is the first house Go2Madeira has ever built in Madeira — and we built it to prove a point.

Anyone can show you photos and promise quality. We wanted something better. So this house isn’t just a home: it’s a working showroom. A modern family home built to the highest standard we can deliver, designed for short rental — which means before you ever decide to build on this island, you can come and stay the night in one. Sleep in it. Feel the walls. Test the technology on your own skin, in Madeira’s real climate, before you trust it with your own home.

This blog is the live record of that build. We’ll link every stage here as it happens — from the first cut in the soil to the finished garden. If you’re thinking about living on Madeira, follow along. By the end, you’ll understand what actually goes into a home that lasts here.

What we’re building

The house sits on a plot of roughly 350 m². It’s a modern, Nordic-style duplex — two maisonettes joined by a shared technical room.

The land wasn’t flat, so instead of fighting the slope, we used it. The lower level is a reinforced concrete monolithic structure — effectively a walk-out basement — carved into the terrain to create living space where a flat-site build would have wasted it. On top of that concrete base sits the timber structure you can see taking shape in the photos: the SIP-built home .

Two units. One technical core, walk-out basement under. Built into the hillside, opening out to the view.

Why the materials matter more than the design

On Madeira, the enemy isn’t the eye — it’s the ocean air, the moisture, the salt. A house here is only as good as its ability to keep those out for decades. So this build is obsessive about the envelope.

  • Waterproofing at a superior level — monolithic Rothoblaas membranes sealing the structure against water.
  • Aluminium flashing rated for the ocean environment, so the salt air has nothing to corrode.
  • Aluminium windows — durable, low-maintenance, built for the coast.
  • A ventilated facade in Japanese cedar, left untreated — no coating, no paint. The goal is to let the wood age naturally and beautifully over time, the way good timber is meant to.
  • A hermetically sealed timber structure — wrapped on the outside with Rothoblaas membrane, lined on the inside with fire-resistant plasterboard. Moisture has no way in; the structure is protected from both sides.
  • The exposed facade sections are thermally insulated with EPS and finished with a silicone render for a clean, modern surface that handles the weather.

And the thermal performance is the top tier. Walls are 210 mm thick, of which 190 mm is thermal insulation — the highest grade of insulation we build. The house is fully air-conditioned, with solar panels on the roof. In a climate that quietly punishes cold, damp, badly-built houses, this one is engineered to stay comfortable and dry, year-round, with minimal energy.

This is the whole reason the showroom exists. You can read a spec sheet anywhere. Standing inside a house built to it — in Madeira, in real conditions — is the only way to actually know.

How this blog will unfold

We’re documenting the entire build, stage by stage. Here’s the roadmap:

Part 1 — Excavation and earthworks for the foundation slab. Where every build is won or lost

Part 2 — The monolithic reinforced concrete walls and the upper slab with balconies. The base the whole house stands on.

What is Coming soon

Part 3 — Waterproofing the below-ground structure, including drainage — the part nobody sees, and the part that decides whether a house stays dry for 50 years.

Part 4 — Delivery and assembly of the timber house, with window installation. Where SIP construction stops looking like a building site and starts looking like a home, fast.

Part 5 — Finishing the interiors and facade. The details that turn a structure into somewhere you’d want to wake up.

Bonus — Landscaping and garden architecture. The last layer: how the house meets the land around it.

We’ll add more detail at every step. Follow the build here — and when it’s done, come book a night and see for yourself.

Go2Madeira — we design, build, and own on Madeira. This is our first SIP timber house on the island, built as a showroom you can actually stay in. Want to talk about building your own home here? Get in touch.