Pernambuco house
Year: 2010
Location: Guarujá, SP, Brazil
Built area: 430m²
Site area: 500m²
No frontiers between the connected environments grouped by function are the major feature of the Pernambuco house. The architect drew 4 virtual axes perpendicular to the street to organize the distribution of internal and external environments. Two of them coincide to the right and left side façade and the other two are in the middle creating a large space for access that crosses the entire project. This central space separates the house into 02 other spaces. On the left is the garage and services. The kitchen opens into the social space so the visitors can participate in the preparation of meals (dissolution of the frontiers between spaces). There is a helical metal stair in the back area allowing direct access to the terrace upstairs. In the right side there are the rooms and the freestanding metal ladder that leads to the upper floor. The same alignment dictates the distribution of external spaces such as the swimming pool and sauna that follow the axes perpendicular to the public street and form the pavilion at the backyard. Upstairs, the four suites follow the same logic of the first floor with a central hall of distribution. On the roof, the glass provides overhead lighting for the entire up floor and main floor. This opening marks the central axis as an exception. While the transparency of glass lets in sunlight, two openings next to the roof eliminates the hot air that rises through its lower density (sustainability). The water surface under de interior stair returns to the air humidity in days of intense heat in the city of Brazil, a tropical country, and the roof garden of the pavilion keeps a low temperature of its flat roof. Modulation and symmetry facilitated the construction of the house. With standardized measures, uniformed heights of the beams and dimensions of the pillars were be used. The same construction technique was adopted in the whole building.