PIPA HOUSE

Pipa House was developed as a prototype by Bernardes Arquitetura, in partnership with a construction company and a couple of entrepreneurs, who wanted to build a product that could be replicated and sold in modules to other clients, generating a fast work experience, with guaranteed deadlines, energy efficiency and technological control.

The house was designed for building efficiency through an industrialized system that allowed its rapid execution and very low waste production. Its structural system in glued laminated eucalyptus wood (glulam) makes the house adaptable to different sites, allowing its reproduction in numerous slope variations while providing a great diversity of composition and the possibility of different finishes. The frame system, also in glued laminated wood, guarantees stability to the structural profiles.

The lifting of the house off the ground ensures water tightness and ventilation for the floor slab, as well as a visit to the facilities that are distributed underneath it. The liner, with the docking system, allows adjustment and visitation to the HVAC systems. The house has individualized heating systems and air conditioning and electrical installations divided in modules, simplifying its maintenance and operation. The external walls in prefabricated concrete panels, with a ventilated facade system, guarantee good thermal response and zero maintenance, due to the need of no retouching to the painting layer. The house was designed for good thermal insulation requiring low to zero maintenance. The team developed a product with high-quality materials and environmentally friendly technology, combining affordability and contemporary design.

ADEGA SANTIAGO RIO

The restaurant Adega Santiago, which already had three units in the city of São Paulo, opened its first unit in Rio de Janeiro in the old event space of a mall in Barra da Tijuca. The new restaurant, which has gained a privileged location that opens to the landscape of the Tijuca Lagoon, had as main challenge to convert a large space in a more intimate environment. Its spatial organization privileges the visual connection of the hall with the lagoon, while its operational areas are concentrated close to the loading and services access of the mall and close to the original blind walls of the salon. The connection of the restaurant with the view of the lagoon also occurs through the interior design and furniture, which reinforce this relationship through the design of more welcoming cabins and a spatial distribution that highlights it.

The finishing materials, which combine flooring, panels and furnishings in dark woods (cumaru, freijo and peroba rosa respectively) to leather coverings, were applied in more contemporary designs that are inspired by the intimate ambience already adopted in other units. The closing of the restaurant takes place through pivoting lattice panels that make the operation of the restaurant more flexible. These can either restrict the use of the salon outside peak hours or to private events, or allow it to expand to areas near the mall’s balcony that overlooks the lagoon. The lighting of the restaurant is through large circular pendants (two to three meters in diameter), lightly spaced, that eliminate the impact of the original large double height. At night, these pendants create a visual effect of large illuminated discs that seem to float above the salon.

MAJ HOUSE

Built in a predominantly residential neighborhood in São Paulo, the MAJ House was designed based on the simplification of material and visual permeability.

Surrounded by other houses and lacking privileged views of the horizon, it was decided to concentrate the main mass in the front portion of the lot, directing the view to the garden in the rear area. From this, structurally, the house is designed in a very simple way: on a horizontal plane in concrete (slab) raised 50 centimeters from the ground, four reinforced concrete gables are subtly arranged – two of them at each end, the two being central diagonally – and that in turn configure trapezoidal volumes that accommodate the support spaces (kitchen, pantry, laundry, and service areas in the first of them; and home theater and toilet in the second). This solution made a 13-metre-long central free span that accommodates the living and dining room and is closed in glass frames that can be retracted, allowing integrating the internal space to the outside.

The central gables extrapolate the limits of the perimeter of the floor, towards the garden, so that they seem to float about the lawn. Perpendicular to the two concrete volumes, the eucalyptus glued laminated wood framework is placed about this, accommodating the intimate areas on the upper floor. This volume, in turn, is entirely built on a light structural system made of wood, developed in partnership with ITA Construtora, which allowed for quick execution, low waste production and quality of the parts.

On the ground floor, the counterpoint of the light tones of the surfaces of the concrete walls and slab floors, together with the warmth of the wood in the ceiling and furniture, makes the space cozy. In the living room furniture, iconic pieces of Brazilian design stand out, such as the São Conrado sofa and the Siri armchair by Cláudia Moreira Salles, composed together with other modern classics, such as the Akari-10A lamp by the Japanese-American designer Isamu Noguchi. Like the architecture itself, the idea of lightness is conveyed to the furniture, with pieces that the lower base does not fully touch the floor, but, raised, have structures that subtly touch the surface, such as the sofa by the Italian brand Poliform. The color is minimally introduced in the decorative objects, cushions and upholstery of the armchair by Claúdia Moreira Salles.

The central dining room table in solid wood, has the same wooden finish as the furniture in the living room, and a special design by Bernardes Arquitetura, accommodating up to 12 people. In the composition, 10 classic chairs of Scandinavian design, Wishbone and Round, by Hans Wegner, acquired by Artesian; and Hoffmann Chair, originally designed by Austrian Josef Hoffman. In the gourmet area, the cabinets are covered in matte ebony wood and the top and counter in Siena granite.

On the upper floor, wood predominates on the floor and joinery with Bernardes design. Children’s rooms have study spaces with storage areas. The master suite has a closet. At the back, the veranda integrated to all bedrooms and home office, with wooden ceiling and floor, receives diagonal vertical metal pieces with horizontal wooden brise-soleils, protecting from direct sunlight and allowing the breeze to flow.

Despite being an urban house, the palette of natural materials in construction and furniture, added to the integration solutions, brought the feeling of a summer or weekend home, in contrast, the visual permeability to the tropical garden with banana leaves, coconut trees and philodendrons, designed by Daniel Nunes.

COLLEGE OF EDUCATION

ARPOADOR HOTEL

The project for the renovation of the Hotel Arpoador goes beyond the idea of ​​a cozy hotel, creating an inviting space, where interior and exterior are blended. Its lobby is integrated into the bar through a patio bathed in natural light, a continuous line connecting Francisco Otaviano and Francisco Bhering streets. The façade is composed of a large wooden panel loose from the structure, which frames the views for those who see from within and creates a subtle order for the building.

The beach climate permeates the entire choice of materials used in the project, from wooden flooring (alluding to a boat deck) to the straw, fibers, linen and cotton used in the interior spaces. On the top floor, the terrace presents a triangular pool with sea views. On the side overlooking the city, a space dedicated to wellness with sauna, room for massage, and another for exercises. The Arpoador offers 49 rooms.

All furniture and fabrics were developed from the concept of total work of art, which presupposes an integration between various forms of artistic expression. The woodwork was designed especially for each space of the hotel, from the rooms to the common areas. In allusion to the nautical architecture, the furniture of the rooms is made of pieces that fit together, allowing different uses. Both the fabrics of the interiors and the uniforms of the team had their colors inspired by the shades of the Arpoador beach, having been exclusively developed by Bernardes Arquitetura for the project.

ASA HOUSE

Sitting on the top of a hill where a preexisting property was located, the Asa House (‘asa’ is the Portuguese word for wing) entirely rebuilt the relationship between site and building. The house creates a ‘harmoniously contrasting’ relationship between landscape and architecture through the articulation of partially underground spaces and emerging transparent volumes. The site’s topography was designed in order to maximize the use of existing semi-flat surfaces as outdoor living areas while fitting key functional, circulation and soil stabilization elements in-between retaining walls. All access to the house – from visitors to staff – is done through this ‘topographic plinth’, which slowly uncurtains the surrounding landscape through sinuous passageways adapted to the original topography.

The distribution of all technical and service areas is also done through the plinth, including HVAC, parking, laundry, among others, which allows all systems to be centrally controlled and constantly monitored for efficiency. It also accommodates some amenities that are connected to outdoor activities, such as a gym and a sauna. The house’s main social and living areas sit on top of this plinth in a volume made of glass and granite, which resembles a garden pavilion as seen from the garden. Its thin, curved roof (the ‘wing’) extends well beyond its limits, providing important environmental protection to living and dining areas. Its large glass panes slide entirely within the walls that cap the volume underneath the ‘wing’, allowing interior spaces to be completely open to the outdoor and to become one wide varanda.

The glass panes are equipped with automated skins that roll down to control natural light and temperature. The wooden walls that cap each edge of this volume enclose more private spaces, a home-office and a kitchen. The private section of the house, where bedrooms and suites are located, are housed in a granite volume perpendicular to the ‘wing’. Its granite façade and smaller windows provide more intimate views to the garden while protecting the privacy of the bedrooms. A separate unit that connects to the main house through the garden was designed as both a guest house and a covered dining area equipped with a small kitchen and a barbecue pit.

The house has a total built area of 3300 sqm. The external walls of the plinth have been built with pigmented concrete. The top volume is made with galvanized steel structure with drywall enclosing covered with ‘freijó’ and ‘cumaru’ wood, native trees of Brazil. The curved roof is composed table made of steel and concrete slabs with waterproofing done with over thermo-molded film. Interior flooring is made with 0.3x3m ‘cumaru’ pieces, while outdoor areas are covered with gray granite extracted locally. The social areas of the house are enclosed by large-scale, sliding panes made of 18mm laminated glass in minimalist aluminum profiles. All HVAC and MEH infrastructure are centrally monitored for performance and are distributed throughout the periphery of the concrete plinth, allowing for easy maintenance access hidden from residents and visitors. The gardens have been designed with the use of native plants typical of the Atlantic Rainforest. The guest annex and private areas are covered with granite plates over metallic structure.

Asa House establishes a unique relationship with the site that boosts its sublime and delicate beauty. Veiled technical and structural systems enable the house to fully express its delicate transparency and connection to nature with minimal interference, while its life support systems apply the most up-to-date, and energy efficient sustainable technologies. The house is a unique example of the interplay between a highly abstract spatial concept with complex infrastructural systems.