TERRA HOUSE

Terra House arises from the intercalation of parallel walls made of pigmented concrete that are perpendicular to its central circulation axis. The articulation between these components generates spaces while defining residential functions and creating patios that open to the main garden. The closure between the vertical (walls) and horizontal (slabs and floor) planes is made with large glass panels that dilute the visual boundaries between the house and the landscape. The route along the central circulation reveals a succession of openings and closures while offering constant visual contact with the exterior.

12 X 12 HOUSE

Located in Leblon, Rio de Janeiro, this house was designed for a young couple with two children. It’s a compact housing volume located in a site surrounded by buildings in a narrow street. The transition between the urban environment to the interior space of a residence is articulated by the frontal façade through a succession of layers that make up a landscape in movement.

An extensive program of 550 sqm was distributed in a 12x12m lotalong three floors and a rooftop. The steel structure and the waffle slab have allowed a free floor plan and an unobstructed façade without any intermediate structural elements. The main stairs and elevator were located along the side structural wall creating generous internal spaces for the children bedrooms in the ground level, the living room in the first floor and the master bedroom in the second.

On the ground level, wood vertical louvers protect the main entrance and the two bedrooms on this floor. On the second and third floors, the spaces shaped by mandatory setbacks are linedwith dense vegetation all along the street facade, bringing privacy for the main living room and the master bedroom. External to the façade garden, horizontal metal blinds provide further privacy and light control. When open, this garden becomes part of the street landscape and creates an interesting dialogue between the interior and exterior of the house.

GURUMÊ SÃO CONRADO

This is the project for the restaurant Gurumê, which specializes on Japanese cuisine. The name is a witty play of the word ‘gourmet’ and aims to emit a feeling of simplicity and sophistication, concept which the office sought to carry through to the design.

The joining of two continuous rooms produced three space with distinct atmospheres: the main hall, the private spaces and the traditional sushi bar. The largest of these contains a collective table with a winding shape that stimulates people’s interaction. The ‘private’ space is formed by a tunnel structured by a succession of geometrically defined porticoes cladded with thin slabs of cumaru timber. Towards the back one finds the sushi bar, comprising of Corian table tops where the client is invited to watch the dishes being prepared.

The materiality of the project, a combination of oxidized copper and timber, was a choice seeking to evoke feelings reminiscent to fishing world: its culture, its boats and its ships. Meanwhile, the hydraulic tiles found on the floors are all hand-crafted and neutral to guarantee the focus rests on the colors of the wood and oxidized copper.

DELTA HOUSE

Commissioned by a couple with three young children, this weekend house, located one and a half hours away from São Paulo, is built on a sloped terrain surrounded by an important Atlantic Forest reserve, in a plot allowed for building purposes. The functional program was laid out in different levels so as to let the house adapt to the existing terrain and trees in a subtle fashion. 

The entrance is made from the car park on the lower level, from which a wide staircase shoots up across the first floor and on to the terrace where the social areas and master suite are built under a light canopy. 

The first floor houses the children’s suites and overhangs the stone base of the house, providing shelter to the car park and arriving guests. The sunscreen panels that clad this volume give privacy to the bedrooms and provide lightness and transparency to the building. 

The upper floor is the most privileged part of the house, benefiting from outstanding views of the sea and beach that are less than one hundred meters away. The trapezoidal, wafer-thin, canopy sits on large glass panes and forms a pavilion that shares the same floor as the large veranda around it. The interior and exterior grades are one and the same. 

The subtle canopy’s slope and the orientation of the timber sunscreens guide the eye towards the horizon, where an infinity edge makes the swimming pool part of the ocean. 

JOA CHAPEL

A client commissioned our office to design a small chapel for small family ceremonies within his residential gardens. The deeply sloped site is in Rio de Janeiro’s neighborhood of Joá and is surrounded by dense rain forest. The building was chosen to stand in a secluded place where tropical vegetation, sky and ocean views provided a beautiful backdrop to the sacred space. As requested, construction was concluded within three months after the initial draft. No trees were felled, and the earth was left practicallyuntouched.

A search for simplicity was the drive behind the design, born of the desire to allow a visitor to access a formerly unreachable point in space. At tree canopy level, the feeling of proximity to nature is enhanced. The building is framed by a sequence of timber structural elements that sit on a narrowing triangular platformprojecting towards the sea. The wooden floor is supported by a single column opposite to the entrance, rising from the ground deep below and transforming itself, at eye level, into a cross. From the inside, one can also look sideways and contemplate the surrounding vegetation showing between the vertically arranged wooden beams. The exterior glass panes shelter the interior from sunlight, wind, and rain and gently mirror the tree tops from the outside. Rational building solutions allowed quick assembly andminimal site impact.

The Joá Chapel is a building designed with technical pragmatismto create a spiritually charged place. By reducing the architectural components to the bare essential, its structural elements acquire symbolic and poetic functions.

DOIS IRMÃOS APT

This penthouse in front of Ipanema beach is in a special situation, in a corner clear, without apparent neighbors, like she’s designed the front of the other buildings, overlooking the sea with a 360 degree view to the Arpoador rock, Morro Dois Irmãos and Lagoa Rodrigo de Freitas. The client, a father with a pre-teen son, let us open all the apartment areas at the most, turning into a huge veranda, including interior and exterior.

The apartment is like a glass box. The landscape invades the living room/veranda and is even more prized by the materials used, the floor only in rough granite sand tone, the tissues in neutral tones and blues and the works of art that were chosen intentionally to each space. Joinery panels hide all doors and make a soft transition from the social to the intimate and service areas. The 4 released decks that glide over the swimming pool line may form different environments, transforming and extending the living room and the family room when desired.

The veranda fully integrated to the inner part can be closed through metallic blinds and retractable awning protecting the afternoon sun and allow full permeability and protection. The vertical garden accompanies the pool and joins the intimate and social area forming a tropical green corridor. The intimate part is more protected and stays inside the block, accommodating the father and son suites, kitchen and dependencies.