Page 91 - Designing Ways 267

Açucena House

Condomínio Arvoredo, Brazil

Tetro presents Açucena House, a place immersed in lush Atlantic
Rainforest nature including large leafy trees, foliage, shrubs, birds,
and wild animals. Casa Açucena is inserted into a challenging
topography with a steep slope, characteristic of the Nova Lima region
in Minas Gerais.

The project is a response to a sensitive reading of the terrain, where first
contact dictated the need to maintain its natural characteristics. The
act of looking upwards, from the ground to the fifteen-metre canopy
of the trees, was decisive for the creation of a concept addressing the
challenge of building in a place with such steep topography, while
maintaining its natural surroundings and providing residents with
the daily experience of looking up and seeing the sky through the
treetops.

The initial understanding was that the architecture should mold itself
to the terrain, and not the other way around. The house rises above
the ground, while animal and plant life develops underneath. The
programme shapes itself as a harmonious balance of art and nature,
occupying the empty spaces between the trees, without removing
any or altering the topography. From that starting point, all design
decisions made as responses to reinforce that concept.

The house, in its white colour, is surprising to those arriving, with its
randomly placed black pillars blending in with the tree trunks. The
house appears to float, with a fluid plan dictated by the programme's
occupation among the trees, and its openings and folds in the
slab, reaching the view of the treetops and generating volumetry.
The architecture is harmoniously inserted alongside the natural
vegetation, yet maintains its presence. Surprise and novelty are values
inherent to art, and Casa Açucena presents itself as a white flower in
the midst of nature. dw

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