Architects: Terra e Tuma Arquitetos Associados
Area: 180 m²
Year: 2021
Photography: Pedro Kok
Lead Architects: Bárbara Fernandes, Danilo Terra, Fernanda Sakano, Pedro Tuma
Landscape Architecture: Gabriella Ornaghi, Bianca Vasone Arquitetura da Paisagem
City/Location: Santo André
Country: Brazil
Lírio House occupies a steep hillside within the Atlantic rainforest, using its elevated position to capture continuous views of the surrounding canopy. The project employs a combination of structural masonry, reinforced concrete, and expansive glass, allowing the residence to balance solidity with openness. Daylight permeates the interiors through large transparent surfaces, reducing reliance on artificial lighting while strengthening the connection to the landscape. An open internal arrangement supports cross-ventilation and supports flexible circulation, reinforcing the home’s environmental responsiveness. Exposed concrete introduces a contrasting visual weight against the dense vegetation, while the landscape design integrates native plantings that extend the forest experience across the site.
Set atop the access point of the sloped terrain, the house is shaped by its measured response to challenging topography. The design aligns the structure with the natural contours, ensuring stability while maximizing opportunities to frame the surrounding forest. Glass becomes an architectural device for immersion, pulling the environment inward and allowing the residence to maintain a visual dialogue with the hillside.
A mixed structural system gives the project both resilience and expressive clarity. Reinforced concrete provides a strong framework capable of negotiating grade variations, while structural masonry contributes to thermal performance and material continuity. The designers intentionally left concrete surfaces exposed, allowing their tonal presence to register against the lush vegetation and heighten the interplay between built and natural elements. This foundation enables wide openings that create generous façade transparency without compromising structural integrity.
The interior unfolds as an open plan that privileges movement, air circulation, and spatial fluidity. The absence of restrictive partitions ensures unobstructed views, allowing daily life to unfold in close proximity to the forest’s shifting light and atmosphere. Landscape architects complemented the architecture by extending native plantings around the residence, blurring boundaries between intervention and ecology. Through its restrained material palette and careful siting, Lírio House demonstrates how hillside living can achieve both environmental attunement and architectural precision.
Project Gallery
Project Location
Address: Santo André, Brazil
The location specified is intended for general reference and may denote a city or country, but it does not identify a precise address.
