Architects: TETRO Architecture, Carlos Maia, Débora Mendes, Igor Macedo
Location: Divinópolis, Minas Gerais, Brazil
Structural concrete design: MV Estruturas
Construction and design of electrical and plumbing installations: Somar Engenharia
Landscape design: Nativa Paisagismo
Lighting: Iluminar
Steel doors: MA Inoxidáveis
Glasses: Cristal Vidros
Stones: Directa Pedras
Sofa and dining Table: Tuoli Móveis
Curtains: Laiza Decorações
Photos: Luisa Lage
The single family house is immersed in the landscape of the Brazilian region of Cerrado, one of the areas best known for the production of coffee, here considered not a mere beverage but a ritual carried out alone or in company, part of a lifestyle lived amidst natural surroundings. For the owners, passionate about the cultivation of coffee, the architects have sought an interpretation of the rural context, where red earth and knotted trunks predominate as do family routines. “Coffee is a drink strongly related to both land and air. In this sense, earth and air were great inspirations. Weight and lightness”.
On the sloping site, that has remained unchanged and surrounded by lush vegetation, the design therefore materialises with two different construction elements, the perimeter walls in red-pigmented concrete (earth) and the curved roof elements in white concrete (air) that seem to float on the entire structure. The decisive materiality of the red walls is the same for the exteriors and interiors, in an anthropic space that seems to have emerged from the landscape to take over all the settings for domestic life, public and private.
Igor Rebosio e Giuseppe Varsavia
“The earth walls guide the view”, say the architects, and the route between the two pavilions that make up the house, protected by two ‘veils’: higher up and completely open to the outside is the open-plan area that houses the dining room, living room and kitchen, lower and more enclosed is the private area with the bedrooms. In between the two blocks, the landscape and vegetation take possession of the ‘domesticated’ space in a terraced garden.
