Photographer: André Nazareth | ArchDaily

Renovation and Everyday Life: How Latin American Architecture Reinvents Existing Spaces

Daniela Andino — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 04:00:00 +0000

Across Latin America, renovation has become less about preservation alone and more about responding to changing ways of living. Rather than freezing buildings in time, many contemporary projects work with existing structures to adapt them to new domestic routines, social dynamics, and spatial needs. Through strategic changes in materials, composition, color, and light, these interventions reinterpret everyday spaces while maintaining a strong connection to their original context.

Rancho House / Landscape jardins

Andreas Luco — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 14:00:00 +0000

The Casa Rancho is located in the mountainous region of Rio de Janeiro, approximately 120km from the capital. Spanning an area of 20,000m², the Rancho was designed to be the family's retreat, also becoming a project for sustainability and environmental recovery of the land, which is part of an old farm. Our program encompasses the integration of the buildings with the terrain and the view. We have designed pathways, furniture, showers, a pool, a viewpoint, decks, fire pits, pergolas, and landscaped areas. The landscape architecture project for Casa Rancho began in 2018, marking the beginning of a journey that involved careful analysis and planning in close collaboration with the architect and the client. Throughout this process, we evolved the initial concept presented in 2020, continuously adapting it to changes in needs and requests for adjustments from the client.

Mountain Ranch / Hana Lerner

Andreas Luco — Tue, 21 Mar 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Bruno and Giovanna asked for a cozy design that integrated all the environments of the house. Dining room, kitchen and living room, because the family loves to receive friends and be with everyone together. In our interior design project we chose coverings with natural textures: stone walls and floors, and wood panels to bring a warm touch. In the bathroom organic shaped mirrors bring charm and a stone carved tub.

Marone House / Siqueira + Azul Arquitetura

Pilar Caballero — Mon, 09 Jan 2023 14:00:00 +0000

The project, developed on a lengthwise axis occupied by the gallery, bets on the rational layout of the environments and on the transparency of the edges, allowing the occupation by internal gardens, natural light fluidity, ventilation, and the use of the spaces by the users.

Atelier Horto / Siqueira + Azul Arquitetura

Andreas Luco — Fri, 06 Jan 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Originally consisting of an existing construction divided in two blocks, the project’s scope encompassed the creation of a space to house an art studio along with the artist’s archive, as well as social and leisure areas. The production studio was structured on the block towards the back, which fulfilled the necessary functions.

Piano House / Ao Cubo Arquitetura

Valeria Silva — Sun, 21 Aug 2022 13:00:00 +0000

Located in Araras, Rio de Janeiro, on a plot of approximately 20,000 m². The project's premise was to understand the terrain, its insolation, respect its characteristics, allowing the trees and the topography to indicate the best place to build the house with the least possible earth movement. The generous surroundings in the landscape favored the choice. The great challenge, which revealed itself along the way, was to combine contemporary architecture, with simple and straight forms, objective in its functions, with the interior that would receive Brazilian modernist furniture, objects, and works of art. Steel, concrete, wood, and glass, timeless materials, appear throughout the volumes and execution details.

Endless Horizon House / Siqueira + Azul Arquitetura

Susanna Moreira — Mon, 11 Oct 2021 14:00:00 +0000

The location of the land within a privileged landscape was the determining factor for the implementation of this project. The construction concept was to land over plateaus and develop over axes of paths which were determined by the project’s program. Divided into specific areas, the architecture scheme consisted of open and plentiful spaces, oriented to the amplest view. Characterized by spacious galleries, the main central axes are bathed with natural light and receives ventilation through the pivoting doors.

Secret Garden / Diego Raposo + Arquitetos

Susanna Moreira — Mon, 30 Aug 2021 07:00:00 +0000

This installation of ephemeral architecture was conceived thinking in the context of the pandemic we have been living since 2020, how much our lives were impacted, we started to live inside our own bubbles, frightened by the idea of them being permeable. Taking these feelings as a starting point, we idealize our own bubbles, a space that reminds us of what is dear, precious, and connects us with what is essential and with nature.

Indah House / Siqueira + Azul Arquitetura

Susanna Moreira — Mon, 26 Apr 2021 14:00:00 +0000

The implementation of this project was determined by the property’s privileged landscape, located on Brazil’s Emerald Coast. Its main entry access is given through vertical circulation in natural stone, set about a historic fig tree. The construction concept entailslanding over a plateau and developing across axis of pathways established by the project’s sectorization.Divided into specific areas, the architectural program delineates open spaces oriented to the amplest view. A pivoting wooden totem with asymbolic graphic schemewarmly welcomes home both owner and guests through the main central axis.

Costa Esmeralda Extension / Siqueira + Azul Arquitetura

Susanna Moreira — Sun, 25 Apr 2021 13:00:00 +0000

In a unique landscape of the Emerald Coast, the implementation of this project arises in favor of breaking the boundaries between the natural and the built. The concept of the construction consisted in placing the annex on an expressive plateau, with open spaces oriented to the widest view.

Strategies to Improve Study Spaces at Home

Audrey Migliani — Thu, 17 Sep 2020 04:00:00 +0000

In early 2020, along with the implementation of worldwide social isolation measures, we published several articles in order to help our readers increase productivity and comfort in their home offices. After months of continued isolation, surveys show that more than 80% of professionals want to continue working from home even after quarantine ends. In addition, a good number of companies are similarly satisfied with current work practices, showing a high tendency to adopt this practice indefinitely, since the majority of companies observed that remote work was as or more productive than face-to-face work.

House in Vale das Videiras / Rodrigo Simão Arquitetura

Pilar Caballero — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 14:00:00 +0000

A house idealized as a weekend house by nature for a writer and a plastic artist, with the possibility of becoming a permanent home. Also can accommodate well the adults son and daughter with children when the family gathers. Erected in a slightly undulated terrain, atypical for the region, with the generous area of 14.366,93m², with existing plateaus and a lake, the program included an arts studio for the owner, which was built over an existing concrete foundation measuring 30,00mx6,50m, reminiscences of an old barm, in the lower part of the lot.

Casa Co Coffee Shop / be.bo + m.o.o.c.

Pilar Caballero — Fri, 24 Jul 2020 16:00:00 +0000

As an ephemeral space, the approach was to design a project as simple as possible and to take full advantage of the space’s potential. Besides that, the project makes use of few materials and coatings, in order to reduce costs and attend to the reduced deadline.

Casa RC House / PKB Arquitetura + Salt Arquitetura

Pilar Caballero — Mon, 06 Jul 2020 14:00:00 +0000

Open and transparent spaces composes the Casa RC, a architecture design of PKB Arquitetura in partnership with Salt Arquitetura. Located in Barra da Tijuca, in the city of Rio de Janeiro, the design of the house followed one of the requests of the residents: they wanted to have the feeling of living inside a forest. Thus, the ground floor works as a large balcony facing the outside.

Águas Claras Residence / Rodrigo Simão Arquitetura

Pilar Caballero — Wed, 13 May 2020 17:00:00 +0000

A house conceived as a contemplation platform, wide open to the views and to maximize sunlight, so vital in a mountain climate.

Pacheco Leão AL Residence / Ateliê de Arquitetura

Pilar Caballero — Tue, 21 Apr 2020 14:00:00 +0000

The program of this house, located in a closed condominium of family residences in Horto neighborhood, Rio de Janeiro, had as the main guideline the simplicity, thermal comfort and practicality, without losing the contemporaneous aesthetic and relation with green areas.

House in Correas / Rodrigo Simão Arquitetura

Daniel Tapia — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 12:00:00 +0000

Interview with architect Rodrigo Simão
I was developing for the same couple a different project in Itaipava, another place in the same city. Already in the detailing phase. It was a very horizontal and full of aediculae house, containing independent suites for the 23 and 30 years old son and daughter. The project resembled very much Frank Lloyd Wright prairie houses, belonging to a place, with the mixed structure of Stone walls, steel, and wood. The owners ended up suddenly with the opportunity to acquire another beautiful condo lot in a forest area in Correas and we changed the address of the project adapting the program of construction.

House in Samambaia / Rodrigo Simão Arquitetura

Pilar Caballero — Wed, 06 Mar 2019 13:00:00 +0000

The house was built for the architect and his family, preserving relief, stones, and native trees, creating functional spaces that integrate domestic life with the nature of the place. The entrance of the house is done through a deck of 7cm thick wooden planks of demolition. This space doubles as an outdoor living room and is where the family spends most of the time.