Project: House in Itu
Architects: Grupo SP
Location: Brazil
Area: 8,342 sf
Photographs by: Nelson Kon, André Scarpa, Manuel Sá
House in Itu by Grupo SP
Grupo SP has designed the House in Itu, Brazil. This contemporary dwelling offers over 8,300 square feet of luxury living spaces designed with an open layout. On the outdoor section, they extend towards a stunning deck with a swimming pool that offers great outdoor living appeal.
A special program: a weekend residence for a family in an extensive area, set to become the main home in the medium term, defines the concept adopted for this project. The house is organized by a longitudinal circulation block that defines its settling on the plot: a 3 meters wide by 45 meters long concrete structure working as a beam. This volume, closed to the street and open to the site, houses the service areas and a gently sloped ramp, linking spaces at the mid-levels that accommodate the house to the ground slope.
These different plans are organized into two blocks – bedrooms and living – that, added to the longitudinal block, define a central void, opened to the landscape, where both meeting and living activities converge. The presence of water brings life to this central square: a pool with concrete walls and the same flooring as the exterior areas, as an extension of the living floor. Located in a closed, non-urban neighborhood, characterized by extensive lots and remote houses, this block layout creates a kind of inner neighborhood, where it is possible to see and be seen, appeasing the feeling of solitude and isolation typical of these neighborhoods.
The concrete structure is organized and shaped according to the main characteristic of each block. In the volume containing the bedrooms, structural walls enclose the spaces that are by necessity more private, while in the living block, two slabs supported by alternating pillars and steel rods define a space almost entirely open the surrounding landscape. The structure of the longitudinal block admits a mixed solution: steel ramps hanged and fixed to the concrete beam that is, in the end, the main facade of the house. From the street, hardly any house at all. The house is the void and the void is like the house.
