Project: Patio House
Architects: 24 7 Arquitetura
Location: Jaguariuna, Brazil
Area: 3,584 sf
Photographs by: Adriano Pacelli
Patio House by 24 7 Arquitetura
24 7 Arquitetura has completed the Patio House in the town of Jaguariuna in Brazil. This outstanding modern dwelling features a living roof that connects with the landscape around it. With over 3,500 square feet of living spaces, this single story provides a habitat in touch with nature.
The clients had defined: the house would have a great central yard and it would develop itself around it. A wide lot, around 1.200m², was acquired and, for our luck, we were responsible to materialize this project. Admirers of the exposed concrete, landscape and nature in general, we soon realized that we would have the support to all of our ideas that would result in an increase of the sustainability aspect of the project.
We stimulated that the house should be distributed on the ground floor, since there was no reason to deliberate something different from that given the wide lot and the relatively compact needs program. We could not forget the extensive views of the condominium and that was the reason the idea of making a great roof garden on the slab came up, with external independent access for the appreciation of the surrounding views.
It is known that the proper site of a house in the lot, regarding the sun, is a vital decision in order to enable the thermal comfort of the project. That is the reason why the yard, project site protagonist, opens itself southeast, the rooms are facing the northeast and the living room volume, also southeast directed, helps to cast a shadow in part of the yard as the sun goes down. The site is distributed in a U-shape, sectoring different uses to each volume: service, social and familiar. This last one is 1 meter above the house level and grants even more privacy to the bedrooms.
The house of 330m² has a simple program besides the 4 suites. With no swimming pool nor leisure area defined by a covered space, a different request was highlighted: a charcoal American grill should be in the yard, along with an outdoor furniture that could comfortably accommodate the family, making the uncovered yard the real living room, but even nicer, since this one is open-air. The horizontal volume of the house integrates the wide eaves that surround the façades and are essential to the protection against solar radiation, providing shady areas and, consequently, a raise on the thermal comfort inside the building.
The board-formed concrete is sovereign on the residence. Made in an experimental way by the construction team, the client approved the quality of a wall prototype made in the beginning of the construction, being adopted later as coating for the whole house: walls, ceiling, flooring, all elements apparent and definitive. Once the mold was removed, only the treatment of the material by a specialized team remained. It does not require maintenance, painting, gypsum ceiling, roughcast, plaster, nothing. It is ready as soon as it is unmold.
The house has a 10.000L cistern in order to water the gardens and the green roof and also has the generation capacity of 5.372 kW/year, equivalent to approximately 420kW/month.
