Set on a predominantly flat plot in a residential condominium in Paraty city, in the state of Rio de Janeiro, the MTL House was designed with the aim of balancing levels of privacy and integration. Built on a prefabricated structural system, the residence is built on two floors from a steel pillars grid, wooden eaves, and closures in wooden brises and muxarabis panels, ensuring speed construction, rationalization and low waste production.

Arriving by the street, the visitor is faced with an essentially protected house, with architectural elements that ensure a certain level of privacy. The ground floor has two suites, a small service suite, TV room, and a kitchen integrated into the social areas – dining room and living room.

Unlike the facade, closed and protected, the back area of this residence opens up to the view of the forest around and beach, allowing visual and physical permeability between the interior and exterior. From this, the extensive deck area, punctuated by trees, the right side portion is intelligently broken, from the extension of the social block, which in turn, generates the space of the living room and a new courtyard. It is also important to mention that this design intention, enabled the pool to have uncovered and covered areas.

In the interior, iconic pieces of Brazilian Design make up the space, such as the Radar armchair and Rio chair by Carlos Motta and Atibaia chair by Paulo Alves. The upper floor has four suites, including the master suite, which receives a wooden private deck over the living room roof. As security and protection, but guaranteeing functionality, the traditional railing is replaced by a bench with the same wood as the floor.

In this project, the eaves, an architectural element often present in Brazilian architecture, instead of a single surface, are drawn from a square grid, by the juxtaposition of the laminated wooden beams, which generates the choreographed drawing of the shadow.

This weekend house in the interior of São Paulo was designed for a couple with small children. The architectural aspect is very clear: organized in a square plan, the external perimeter is delimited by metal pillars of circular section that support the generous eaves and shelter the balcony, in addition to marking the internal courtyard of the same shape that occupies the central position. In this way, the house has two facades, one external and one internal, as well as two circulation galleries, one of which is the balcony and the other, the gallery that surrounds the courtyard. The closing of the facades in wooden slats and the camouflaged frames of the same material allow the controlled existence of interior / exterior permeability.

The central courtyard, in addition to enhancing natural lighting and ventilation, provides a view of the generous garden from all rooms. The vertical closures do not touch the roof – with the exception of the living room where a larger ceiling height was guaranteed – which contributes to giving lightness to the roof that rests on the grid of metal pillars with a rhythmic spacing of 5 in 5 meters.

The residence is detached from the land and the main access is through a large pivoting door that directs the resident to the circulation around the internal garden. The social area of the residence is located at the back of the land, on the north facade, and can be fully integrated into the external garden, where the pool is also located, with the same size as the central courtyard. The intimate area is on the east facade and to the west the compartments for the service.