- Project: Pratical House
- Architect: Estúdio Zargos
- Location: Brazil, Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais
- Year: 2019
- Area: 610 m2
- Photography: Jomar Bragança
Minimalism Elevated Over the Landscape
The Pratical House by Estúdio Zargos rises from a steep hillside in Belo Horizonte with a clear and deliberate simplicity. The residence balances precision and serenity — a modern composition that translates functional clarity into spatial poetry.
At the heart of the project lies the studio’s central aim: to create a concise, cohesive, and coherent home that integrates architecture, terrain, and view without unnecessary complexity. The result is a residence that feels elevated both literally and conceptually, floating above the ground yet anchored in its natural surroundings.
Form and Spatial Logic
The site, at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac, slopes sharply toward a panoramic horizon. Instead of fighting the terrain, the architects embraced it. The house unfolds across two main levels:
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Lower Level: Serves as the arrival and service zone — garage, technical areas, and a multi-purpose patio sheltered under the elevated main volume.
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Upper Level: The true living platform — an open floor plan uniting living, dining, and kitchen with generous terraces that open toward Belo Horizonte’s rolling hills.
This approach allows for maximum horizontality, framing long views while maintaining privacy. The upper floor is designed as a single linear bar that stretches parallel to the landscape, where every space participates in the experience of light, air, and distance.
A Dialogue Between Structure and View
From the street, the house appears as a sculpted volume resting lightly on concrete supports. The structure’s precision allows for large cantilevers that extend the living spaces toward the horizon while shading the lower level.
Glass walls slide away entirely, merging interior and exterior into one fluid terrace. The result is an architecture of transparency and depth — where the line between house and view dissolves into the landscape.
Material Palette and Atmosphere
Materiality here is restrained yet rich in texture.
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Concrete and natural stone form the tactile foundation of the design.
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Glass and slender metal profiles define openness and precision.
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Wood accents and neutral tones add warmth and balance.
The architects avoided ornamentation in favor of light and proportion. During the day, the house glows softly as sunlight filters through horizontal slats. At night, the interior illumination transforms it into a floating lantern above the hillside.
Functionality as Aesthetic
True to its name, Pratical House is designed with usability at its core. Circulation is intuitive, rooms are proportioned for comfort, and spaces are oriented for cross ventilation. The terrace doubles as an outdoor living room, extending the usable area without increasing the footprint.
Sustainability emerges through logic rather than technology — passive cooling, natural lighting, and strategic shading make the house energy-efficient and resilient.
Experience of the Site
From inside, one perceives the house as a continuous sequence of framed views — a cinematic unfolding of sky, vegetation, and distant cityscape. The minimal structural grid allows furniture and art to float within open space, while the terrace offers a constant dialogue between interior life and the wider landscape.
The architecture does not dominate its environment; it amplifies the experience of place, turning topography and light into active design partners.
A Modern Brazilian Poetic
In the lineage of contemporary Brazilian modernism, Pratical House inherits the ethos of simplicity and structural clarity found in the works of Niemeyer and Mendes da Rocha — but translates it into a more intimate domestic scale.
It’s a house that values permanence over fashion: concrete, glass, and open air arranged to form a timeless expression of comfort and restraint.
