CASA EN UBATUBA, 2007-2009. House in Ubatuba
This house is located on a hillside on the Tenorio de Ubatuba beach, a land that local regulations forbid either intervention or altering the vegetation. The structural strategy consisted of three concrete columns to elevate the piece, formed by three separate but interconnected volumes. The main access from the top terrace at street level generates a path from top to bottom. A bridge connects the main entrance and opens views towards the sea and the hill. The rooms were arranged in two separate volumes, one for parents and one for children, all adults.
Se ubica en una ladera en la playa Tenorio de Ubatuba, terrenos que por normativa local no se pueden intervenir como tampoco la vegetación existente. La estrategia estructural consistió en tres columnas de hormigón para elevar la obra, formada por tres volúmenes independientes pero conectados entre sí. El acceso principal, desde la terraza superior al nivel de la calle, genera un recorrido de arriba hacia abajo. Un puente conecta la entrada principal y abre vistas hacia el mar y la colina. Las habitaciones se dispusieron en dos volúmenes separados, uno para los padres y otro para los hijos, ya adultos.
- Let's take an example: How are these two areas combined, the human and the technical, in the weekend house in São Paulo? As you explained in your conference, the main programs are the garden and the pool, leaving the house in the background. The same in the case of the House of Ubatuba, with a very unconventional floor plan. How do you reconsider the way of inhabiting a work, how has this stance evolved? Because it’s clear it’s becoming less and less obvious how a home should be. If we look at how we have lived or how we live according to the place and circumstances, we find that we have done it in so many ways. When we build a home or an office, we think about how we live and work in our culture. The Ubatuba house was designed for a couple, a retiring doctor and an engineer, who had this beachfront site where they wanted to live. For the children it would be a weekend place, so there had to be a zone of permanent use and another for occasional use. I was worried about making a home with empty places, which are filled with nostalgia and look lifeless in the end. In this sense the functional program is bold: the living room is directly linked to the master bedroom, you come out onto a terrace and the rooms of the children are below. When they are not there the empty spaces are not visible, there is independence. The Carapicuiba house was for a couple with one child and working at home. The studio was to be independent of the operation of the house. The plot had a steep slope, a 6-meter level difference with the street. What we did was to leave the studio office upstairs, high up, overlooking the roofs of the house itself, which is located below.
there are two crucial people, a structural engineer and a landscaper, with whom everything was thoroughly discussed and where vegetation was taken as part of the design. But if I think of the Carapicuiba house, I think of the slope facing a lush wooded hillside. The plot was like a window to everything behind and we had to avoid turning our back to it. In this house we then have virgin nature in front and domesticated nature we designed for the plot of the house, a game that I really like. - In your work structure plays a crucial role, you seem to take it to the extreme. What is the role of the structure in the expression of your designs? The engineer at Lugano liked to say that the architecture I proposed demanded much from the structure, and it is true. I observe the conversation between them and I like that conversation. Understanding how the structure can function as architecture ... Philosophy defines “architectural” as the ability to put the most important thing in front of the eyes, finding the correct hierarchy between things ... In our context the choice of the concrete structure has a sense, it is a legacy. Concrete is the basis of construction in Brazil, a historical decision of the 50s that prevailed over steel because it gave the possibility of a local industry throughout the country. Well, we became experts... - What defines your projects, what’s the influence of the user, the possibilities, opinions, pressures...? In each design process I value very much conversations, and the works are a way to record the different conversations. It is so that at the end of a process, which may take two to three years, one takes a floor plan and can describe each point that was discussed, each option taken and how the solution was reached. Being open to listening is critical to reach a project where everyone, or almost everyone, can recognize him or herself. The three works we have discussed represent this. That is also quality architecture, to produce something that is not the expression of a single person. Architects master certain knowledge, but this knowledge is about how to capture different views on a topic.
STRUCTURE AND ARCHITECTURE
- How do you manage the relationship with vegetation and nature? In Brazil you almost need to defend from it, contain it; in Chile instead we want to let it in. What a curious observation, because we do not defend ourselves from nature, it’s quite the opposite. Vegetation is at the same temperature as the houses so it is no threat, it’s always there. For example, in the weekend house in São Paulo, with its pool at the top,
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