Located in Joanopolis, a small municipality a few hours north of São Paulo, this vacation house was recently designed by UNA Architects for a pair of friends.
The site's stunning position at the base of the tall Mantiqueira Mountain bordering São Paulo and Minas Gerais was a prime inspiration for the structure's final shape. Orientated towards the nearby Piracaia Lake, the house is a simple rectangular box blending half-buried in the surrounding environment.
The architects' aim was to integrate the building within the landscape as much as possible. In order to achieve that, a big part of it is built as a composition of heavy stone walls, created with locally-sourced stone and using indigenous techniques. These walls frame the structure and also define a series of three inner interconnected courtyards that support the interior's natural ventilation system.
The white tower, another distinctive feature, shoots vertically from the otherwise low structure of the design, carrying the house's entire infrastructure, from water tanks to heaters and chimneys. As the house is only half visible from street level, the tower is also the main architectural feature visible from such a vantage point.
The building is strongly linked to the surrounding nature in many respects. It is designed on a single level, however, an exterior path can also lead to the street or the structure's flat green roof.
Sliding glass doors towards the garden unite interior and exterior, opening the house up to the scenery in a traditionally Brazilian fashion. This is the case for most of the house's large openings, although extra wooden sliding panels were placed in the bedroom windows in order for them to tightly shut at night.
Located in Joanopolis, a small municipality a few hours north of São Paulo, this vacation house was recently designed by UNA Architects for a pair of friends.
The site's stunning position at the base of the tall Mantiqueira Mountain bordering São Paulo and Minas Gerais was a prime inspiration for the structure's final shape. Orientated towards the nearby Piracaia Lake, the house is a simple rectangular box blending half-buried in the surrounding environment.
The architects' aim was to integrate the building within the landscape as much as possible. In order to achieve that, a big part of it is built as a composition of heavy stone walls, created with locally-sourced stone and using indigenous techniques. These walls frame the structure and also define a series of three inner interconnected courtyards that support the interior's natural ventilation system.
The white tower, another distinctive feature, shoots vertically from the otherwise low structure of the design, carrying the house's entire infrastructure, from water tanks to heaters and chimneys. As the house is only half visible from street level, the tower is also the main architectural feature visible from such a vantage point.
The building is strongly linked to the surrounding nature in many respects. It is designed on a single level, however, an exterior path can also lead to the street or the structure's flat green roof.
Sliding glass doors towards the garden unite interior and exterior, opening the house up to the scenery in a traditionally Brazilian fashion. This is the case for most of the house's large openings, although extra wooden sliding panels were placed in the bedroom windows in order for them to tightly shut at night.
Imaginative re-use is rarely concluded on such a grand scale. The Painted House in North London stems from an unprecedented opportunity tucked away on a quiet residential street. Tasked with reconfiguring two 1940s semi-detached houses for a large extended family, Jonathan Woolf Architects, working with Bharat Patel, have cleverly conjoined the structures at key points.
By using large opening doors that fold seamlessly away when openness is desirable, the two houses can also be kept separate and discreet. Created for two brothers, their families and grandparents, this is highly architectural exploration of an increasingly common housing type, usually constructed on a very pragmatic and informal basis.
From outside, the houses have been subtly re-skinned in slips of thin brick, disguising the fact that they've been entirely reinsulated, restructured and rebuilt. Stripped of extraneous detailing, with large expanses of mullion-less glass, the prosaic nature of 1940s-era construction is given a subtle contemporary sheen; almost unnoticeable at first, but gradually becoming evident in the care and placement of ironmongery or the crisp precision of the brick courses.
The interior is also an exercise in refinement, with every surface and intersection pared back to the bare minimum. That's not to say this is a Minimalist project, for the delight in light and form animates both the house and the interplay between circulation spaces and the individual rooms. The house's name stems from a preoccupation with painted surfaces; there is an immensely careful interplay between the expansive, unbroken wall and floor planes, modulated by a variety of discreetly different shades of paint.
The rear façade features generous openings onto the garden, while a new attic floor has been carved out of the original volume, the joists and trusses enclosed to form sculptural living spaces. Clever details abound, like the passive ventilation systems that direct cooled or heated air around the space, or the placement of the fan motor for the kitchen hob - which is tucked away so that the fan operates in ghostly silence.
The house is a blank canvas for busy family life, a stage set waiting to be animated. Woolf's studio was established in 1991, demonstrating a concern for calm and considered residential works that acknowledge vernacular traditions, and the Painted House continues this low-key but critically assured line of work.
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