- Project: AK House
- Architect: Leo Romano
- Location: Brazil, Goiânia, Goiás
- Year: 2020
- Area: 500 m2
- Photography: Edgard Cesar
A High-Stakes Landscape, Thoughtful Architecture
Located in a horizontal condominium in Goiânia, the AK House is set on a sloping site that the architect turned into opportunity. The ground floor is elevated roughly two metres above the street level, which grants the house commanding views toward the forest at the front and allows the architecture to float above the terrain rather than sitting upon it. The design uses the slope to establish hierarchy of space and view.
Massing & Façade Strategy
From the street, the house presents a controlled façade—materials like stone and aluminium brise-soleil offer privacy and a sense of weight. Yet toward the leisure zone, the ground floor becomes transparent with large glass openings, connecting social spaces to the pool and terrace. Above, suites and a TV lounge occupy the upper floor, tucked behind the material language of the second level. The result: a monolithic expression from outside that dissolves into openness when one enters and moves through the home.
Interior Spatial Experience
Inside, the social pavilion unfolds like a verandah room extending toward the pool square. Sliding aluminium-frame walls blur inside and outside. The open-plan living, dining and kitchen zones merge seamlessly with exterior terraces and gardens. Gardens on the lateral setbacks and even “hanging gardens” for the private circulation enrich the sense of nature inside the built frame. On the upper level, the private domains—bedrooms and TV lounge—are organised to enjoy the elevated viewpoint while maintaining intimacy.
Materials, Atmosphere & Nature Integration
A refined palette of stone, timber, aluminium and glass defines the home. The elevated ground floor glazing creates a sense of levitation; the textured materials on upper levels create solidity and privacy. Lush planting at the margins, the pool square and terraces reinforce the house’s relationship to nature—not as a backdrop, but as an integrated element. Light, shadow and greenery become part of the everyday experience.
Significance & Reflection
AK House illustrates how modern Brazilian residential architecture can coexist with landscape, level change and climatic demands without resorting to tropes. It integrates elevated positioning, controlled transparency, and material sophistication to craft a home that feels both protective and generous. For those studying contemporary architecture in subtropical Brazil, this home offers rich lessons in site strategy, social-versus-private zoning, and material composition.
AK House by Leo Romano is an architecture of presence: bold in form, subtle in experience. While large in area, its design remains attentive—to view, to level, to light, and to the moments of domestic life. It proves that luxury and restraint need not be opposites.
