- Project: CA House
- Architect: Jacobsen Arquitetura
- Location: Brazil, Bragança Paulista, São Paulo
- Year: 2014
- Area: 886 m2
- Photography: Leonardo Finotti
Contour, Light & Architectural Strategy
CA House is sensitively embedded into sloping terrain, with its design responding directly to the site’s contour lines, sun orientation, and panoramic vistas. The house is laid out in a distinctive “Z-shaped plan, which fragments the program into three distinct volumes: social, private, and service. These volumes are articulated through non-orthogonal edges, allowing the architecture to adapt to topography, control views, and mediate solar exposure.
The social volume is transparent and visually open, oriented toward landscape views and framed by a light, slightly inclined wooden roof. The roof extends as a long balcony at its lower edge, providing shelter and horizontal emphasis.
Service and private volumes are articulated with metallic brise panels, configured with varying angles and depths to filter light, admit views, and provide visual lightness. The brises are arranged with deliberate irregularity—like fabric layers—creating a soft and dynamic envelope.
Spatial Organization & Flow
The plan divides into three key zones:
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Service zone: located at the highest part of the site, handling entry, utilities, and back-of-house operations.
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Social zone: central in the composition, embracing transparent façades, open living, verandas, and connection to the pool and landscape.
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Private zone: mapped along the slope, with bedrooms “lapping over” the terrain, sometimes supported on slender columns to minimize ground impact.
This arrangement allows the living and outdoor rooms to face the view, while the bedrooms retreat slightly, respecting privacy and context. The use of angled volumes gives each zone independent geometry while maintaining unity.
Materiality & Detailing
CA House’s material palette is refined and restrained:
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Roofing / eaves / wood structure: light wooden roof, slightly inclined, visually expressing shelter.
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Metallic brise panels: wrap the private and service façades, modulating light and depth.
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Glass façades: in the social volume, enabling transparency, garden views, and visual continuity.
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Structural system: light structure, steel and wood, to enable elegant spans and cantilevers.
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Interior finishes / furniture: integration of pieces by Sérgio Rodrigues, Carlos Mota, and Mônica Cintra provides layered cultural and material resonance.
The brises are especially important—they function as sculptural shading elements that add texture, control daylight, and animate the façade.
Light & Climatic Performance
CA House is designed for controlled daylighting and passive comfort:
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The brises on private and service volumes filter direct sun while permitting diffused daylight.
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The transparent social volume enjoys generous daylight and views, tempered by overhangs and shading devices.
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The inclined roof helps channel light inside and enhances internal spatial variation.
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The spatial layout and elevation permit cross-ventilation through the volumes, reducing reliance on mechanical cooling.
The alignment of volumes, intentional angles, and façade treatments all contribute to a refined balance between exposure and protection.
Conclusion
CA House by Jacobsen Arquitetura is a masterful exercise in geometric subtlety, site responsiveness, and material finesse. Through Z-shaped planning, angled volumes, and expressive shading systems, the project negotiates terrain, light, privacy, and landscape with quiet authority.
It is not merely a house built on land—but architecture that is shaped by land, light, and material precision. In Bragança Paulista, CA House stands as an elegant statement: modern, contextual, and rich in architectural thought.
