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Architects: Luciano Lerner Basso
- Area: 99 m²
- Year: 2023
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Photographs:Luciano Basso, Alcindo Dedavid
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Lead Architect: Luciano Lerner Basso
Text description provided by the architects. Urubici is a small town located in the highlands of the state of Santa Catarina, in southern Brazil. A region characterized by beautiful landscapes and mild climate, it attracts a large number of tourists seeking tranquility and contact with nature. In this context, we developed the project for a small weekend house that could comfortably accommodate a couple and, eventually, serve as a source of income for short-term rentals, such as Airbnb. The topography, vegetation, and orientation (both solar and towards the best view) were the initial guidelines of the project. Situated on a generous land area of over 20 thousand square meters, characterized by a rugged topography and a beautiful Araucaria forest (a species of Brazilian pine threatened with extinction), the house was designed so that its forms would not attempt to compete with the beauty of such perfect nature.
In two movements, we propose Architecture: a retaining wall built with stones extracted from the terrain, aiming to standardize the topography and create a kind of podium for the dwelling. Upon this base, we support a rectangular prism in exposed concrete. A composition of simple forms that, in our way, pays homage to the rationality and constructive honesty of heroic modernism. The result is a construction that merges with the landscape like a rock that emerged from the natural soil and was shaped by man. The texture of the concrete bears the marks of its formwork, referring, at the same time, to the vernacularity of the wooden cabins in the region and strongly relating to contemporary Brazilian architecture.contemporânea brasileira.
Internally, the gray of the concrete contrasts with the green of the landscape and the warmth of the reforested wood floor. A large uninterrupted glass panel occupies one side of the house, dissolving the barriers between the interior and exterior, making the house not just an observatory for nature but a part of it. An Architecture that expands the surroundings and is expanded by it, where domestic life naturally unfolds inside and outside the constructed spaces. A small abode where formal simplification and tactile uniformity lead to sensory complexity; complexity and contradiction that reveal the humanity behind this project: the desire to have Architecture as a catalyst for moments of happiness that balance the adversities of daily life.
