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Architects: Francisco Hue Arquitetura
- Area: 655 m²
- Year: 2020
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Photographs:Ana Carolina Muratori
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Manufacturers: Chauffage, Dimlux, EMAM, Lightworks
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Lead Architect: Francisco Eduardo de Souza Hue
Text description provided by the architects. Located on the region of Petrópolis, Rio de Janeiro, the IAC residency is sited on a mountain plateau. Overlooking a valley, the setting sun and the Serra da Maria Comprida facing north. The house implantation and its space articulations were stablished with the intention of not intervening with the natural topography, to articulate the house within the site’s sunlight and landscape.
Thought and conceived for a family who lives and works in the region, this is a house for dwelling. It is also, on the weekends and holidays, a place to welcome the visit of family and friends. Aware of this aspect, the guestrooms, and support areas were incorporated at the main body of the residency, but still maintaining its own independent spatiality and private access, allowing the house to expand when necessary.
The main access to the house is from a pre-existent ramp that leads to the entrance patio. This patio creates a visual axis with the entrance pergola, the living room, and the veranda that opens up to the gardens. This axis also articulates the kitchen and service areas with the pavilion rooms and common spaces located on the opposite side, the upper limit of the plateau.
Staggered stories allow the house to have in all of its spaces the desired connection and access to the gardens. A garden slab follows the entire north and west facades, working both as a veranda and as protection from the north sunlight. Seen through the wall-to-wall upper windows in the living room, the slab frames the Serra view.
The single roof that covers the living room was executed in glue-laminated wood, which allows the roof rafters to overcome the living room width. The roof pitch follows the rise of the stairs revealing the landscape view as the pathway ascends. This creates a sense of domain and intimacy between the house and the landscape.
The garden slab covers both the room pavilion and the service pavilion. This ensures thermal comfort and recovers the soil removed from the implantation of the house. They also allow the sky to be seen, once these suspended gardens are accessible and walkable. Following the level curves of the site sprawling through the landscape.
Located a level below the house, the pool and leisure areas are accessible by a staircase that doubles as an amphitheater. Visually integrating the house and the pool patio that trails the inflection of the house towards the mountains. The leisure pavilion slab is covered by the living room garden. Other pathways integrate the rooms and kitchen areas, allowing a continuous walk through the exterior of the house in the most diverse combinations of paths.
