Ensconced in Brazil’s coastal rainforest in the state of São Paulo, this residence has been designed to slip seamlessly into a landscape of luxuriant vegetation, rocks and stones on a sleep incline. The overwhelming presence of the forest crowding in on the house seems to signal an implicit submission of the architecture - in this case, a large residential villa - to the natural order, a subordination confirmed by a program geared to making the manmade object an integral part of its imposing surroundings. The site, on one of two small adjacent clearings - the only open spaces in the vicinity - immediately reveals the cipher of the program. Large flat irregular-shaped paving stones, recalling the rocky outcrops in the steeply sloping terrain, create sinuous walkways around the house. Irregular-shaped rocks form a horizontal bulwark protecting a wide timber deck on the lower floor. As a result, the house seems to spring from the landscape, a natural formation standing as a solid point amidst the life-cycle of exuberant vegetation, a dwelling unit perfectly in sync with its environment. Elegant and restrained, the building stands detached but nonetheless part of the rocky incline, the encroaching jungle seemingly intent on concealing the structure and blending it into its context. The program is distinctive: a jutting volume standing off the ground; functional environments disposed creatively on three levels and vertically connected by long staircases - against the walls in the interiors, adding a spacious airiness to the enclosed environments, and free-standing on the open ground floor. The ground floor deck stands off the ground. This large empty surface is clad with vertical timber slats that also envelop the ceiling - the soffit of the first floor jutting out from the slope. Sheltered yet open, it is an intermediate space between the manmade construction proper and the luxuriant vegetation all around; a place where the regular perimeter of the...
Digital
Printed
National Museum of African American History and Culture - a political and cultural milestone
Freelon Adjaye Bond / SmithGroup
Washington is formally a white city, in the sense that many of its great monuments - buildings and urban elements recognizable across the globe - are ...Architecture’s New Frontier
Maurizio Sabini
Knowledge and research are becoming the new frontier of architecture. Even though accidental discoveries have taken place throughout the history of th...Los Angeles MAPPING - Turning urban sprawl into quality density
Los Angeles is one of the world’s most surprising yet characteristic megalopolises - and one of the most studied. Founded in 1781 with the extravaga...