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Architects: Apiacás Arquitetos
- Year: 2022
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Manufacturers: Erco, Alpes Inox, Alumilux, Ecoclay, Fassa Bortolo, Jordi Veciana, Jung Iberira, LUMİNA, Nemo Lighting, SIC97, Skye Maunsell, THPG, VitrA
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Lead Architects: Anderson Fabiano Freitas
Text description provided by the architects. This project was designed to occupy a plot located in a condominium near São Paulo, with a gentle slope, and led us to think of a single-story implantation with the residential program not grouped, to condition circulation as an outdoor route, covered yet open, as in the traditional veranda houses of our vernacular architecture. Although the path of the house is made introspectively, like a cloister, circling the internal perimeter of the roof that delimits the permeable area of the courtyard, the intention was to accentuate the relationship inside and outside, as the gaps between volumes act as windows to the external view, where the landscaping should be denser, with the aim, in addition to the act of contemplation, also to preserve the privacy of the residents without the need to create walls at the lot boundary.
The disconnected play of volumes is joined by a single wooden structure roof, a grid mesh with a modulation of 1.25x1.25m, now opaque, now open, now sealed with tempered glass with shading through the wooden slats, acting as a horizontal brise - this situation shelters the living area and external kitchen located on the roof slab of the rooms above the half-level pool area.
Intentionally, the wooden roof, designed as a single horizontal plane, forms a loose crowning of the concrete panel walls and ends up unifying the fragmentation of the ambient program.
For the logistics of the work, we established three phases that alternated between prefabrication and assembly:
- The first phase was the execution of the floor. A concrete slab that acts as a foundation and floor at the same time adjusted at a mid-level in relation to the existing slope to avoid large earth movements. During this period, we simultaneously started the prefabrication of the structure, concrete panels, and frames.
- The second phase, once the curing and sanding of the concrete floor were completed, we began the assembly of the wooden structure, always fixed and joined by galvanized steel components.
After the assembly of the crowning mesh and the consequent execution of the roof, we started the third and final phase.
- The third phase was completed with the installation of concrete panels and frames, as well as the installation of equipment, lighting, and fixed furniture - also designed by apiacás.
This work is the result of experiments we have been doing in our office after some projects with the theme of prefabrication to contribute to other constructive possibilities for the construction site that would minimize material waste, the ostensive use of water, and as a consequence favor time and labor. However, unlike the first works in which we sought this challenge when we had used a metal structure, this is the first time we have mixed a wooden structure with concrete panels, as we still understand it to have excellent performance as a sealing material.
In our office, we think of this project not only as a search for constructive coherence but also for the poetics of design, with the intention of creating a residual image in our memory when we speak about it; a construction where the heaviest material is inserted as a base crowned by a lighter materiality, wood, which in turn seems to float on the inert mass of concrete
