TM House / Jacobsen Arquitetura

Architects: Jacobsen Arquitetura
Area: 2,458 m²
Year: 2022
Photography: Fernando Guerra | FG+SG
Lead Architects: Paulo Jacobsen, Bernardo Jacobsen
Architects Team: Edgar Murata, Marcelo Vessoni, Fernanda Maeda, Marina Budib, Alan Cruciti, Alexandre Gravalos, Bianca Pastori, Fernando Lima
Landscape: Rodrigo Oliveira
Lighting Design: Maneco Quinderé
Structural Engineering: Leão e Associados
City: Porto Feliz
Country: Brazil

TM House by Jacobsen Arquitetura occupies a lakeside plot in Porto Feliz, Brazil, where the architecture harmonizes with the site’s sloping topography. Designed for a mother and her two daughters, the single-story residence is divided into four interconnected volumes that balance privacy and unity. Each family member has an individual pavilion, while a fourth structure accommodates a spa, garage, and service spaces. The pavilions are linked by covered walkways that foster both physical and emotional continuity, reflecting the family’s shared life. A restrained palette of materials, a metal structural system, and deep overhangs ensure comfort and environmental responsiveness. Wrapped in adjustable Venetian blinds, the home filters sunlight and frames serene views of the lake, illustrating the firm’s enduring commitment to minimalist elegance and contextual sensitivity.

Set amid the verdant outskirts of São Paulo, the residence integrates seamlessly with the landscape, following the site’s natural contours rather than imposing a rigid geometry. This topographic sensitivity defines the home’s character, allowing the architecture to appear as though it emerged from the terrain itself. Jacobsen Arquitetura’s approach emphasizes fluidity and coherence, aligning the built environment with the rhythms of the land and the lives within it. The non-orthogonal arrangement of the pavilions creates a subtle visual movement that mirrors the undulating slope, producing a composition that feels simultaneously measured and organic.

The architectural program responds directly to the family’s structure. The matriarch’s pavilion contains both the social core and the main suite, serving as the symbolic and spatial center of the home. Two additional blocks house the daughters’ private quarters, providing independence without detachment. A fourth, partially embedded structure conceals the spa and service spaces while reinforcing the home’s relationship with the ground. The covered walkways uniting these volumes act as gentle connectors, framing landscaped courtyards and guiding transitions through light and shadow.

Within the main pavilion, the plan unfolds linearly, with gardens positioned between the social and private zones to create privacy and promote cross ventilation. This careful calibration of openness and enclosure defines the spatial atmosphere, allowing interior life to coexist seamlessly with the surrounding vegetation. Every visual axis terminates in greenery or water, reinforcing a sense of calm continuity. The result is a residence that blurs the threshold between built and natural environments without diminishing the intimacy of domestic life.

The home’s material expression conveys both precision and restraint. A metal structure supports generous eaves extending up to six meters, providing shade and a layered sense of depth. The façades are veiled in Venetian blinds that filter the tropical light while maintaining the occupants’ privacy. This rhythmic outer skin gives the house a dynamic, mutable quality as it responds to shifting daylight conditions. A landscaped stair descends toward the pool terrace, its alignment carefully determined so that the water’s surface complements rather than interrupts the lake view, maintaining the visual serenity that defines the project.

TM House exemplifies Jacobsen Arquitetura’s consistent pursuit of architecture that engages place, climate, and emotion with equal measure. Through its balance of geometry and landscape, simplicity and sophistication, the residence achieves a rare sense of equilibrium. Each element—from its spatial hierarchy to its finely tuned details—reinforces a vision of domestic life rooted in clarity and connection. The result is an architecture of quiet confidence, where restraint becomes the medium for expression and the natural world remains an enduring presence in everyday experience.