Vista House, a dance of light and shadows on each surface

Sculpted by the lagging and constant action of Bahia's waters, Trancoso’s sea scarps stands before alluring beaches and its vivid colours. Vista House lays on top of one of them; a fourty-six meters high cliff. From a bird’s perspective, the elongated volume aims to frame the landscape like a wide-angle camera, capturing the breathtaking nature of Trancoso, and bringing the horizon into the house. Its horizontal proportions are delineated by the extrusion of a cottage elemental section, which generates a sixty meter long structure. Rooted by closed volumes in its edges, which contains the master suite and the kitchen, the house opens itself to the colours surrounding through an immense wide-screen span overlooking the infinite blues. The audacity of the metallic structure that enables the 45 meter long void is balanced by the tactile organicity of the materials that envelopes it. The façade of this outer structure is wrapped by slats of ashy eucalyptus — reminiscent of a traditional material in northeastern Brazil made from the spindly branches of the biriba tree — which seem to grow over the facade like petrified roots. The roofing, on its turn, is made from recycled wood and had its tiles handcrafted one by one. Under the roof, an open-air veranda permeates the span, connecting the gardens on either sides and surrounding a white lower box. As a house within a house, this volume hosts three bedrooms, a small den, a bathroom and a living room enveloped in perforated Viroc panels (a dense wood-and-cement composite). Independent of the main structure, this inner house can open itself completely as the Viroc panels work as folding screens. This untied structure and the pale materials palette favors the interaction with the sunlight and the colours surrounding in a cinematic approach. The outside views swoop inside the interiors spaces through soulful textures that refract and reflect light, creating a dance of light and shadows on each surface, specially through the biriba slats and the Viroc perforated walls. In a balanced manner, Vista house embraces contrasts. Local materials and furniture pieces dialogue with a bold structure and engineered finishings. Nature's strong colours are filtered and framed by a muted palete. Closed volumes open themselves to open-air terraces and hallways. Precise boundaries are, ultimately, diluted by this permeable living.