Iporanga House - Living Steel

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Iporanga House

Iporanga House, is located in Iporanga, a condominium for summer houses on São Paulo’s coast, approximately 120km east of the capital. This condo is inside a very well preserved and protected area of the original Atlantic Rainforest. The exuberance of this native forest led the client to demand of São Paulo architects, Nitsche Arquitetos Associados, a house that occupied as little as possible of the ground (lot) surface. But at the same time he wanted it to be large and comfortable, and asked for five suites: one for the couple, one for each of his 3 sons and one for guests, which demanded a built environment of not less the 400m2.

The So the architect’s decided to split the programme in three levels: a suspended volume, wood structured for the five suites, so they would be at the trees´ crown/top; a plan, the concrete slab elevated from the ground to support all of the programme social activities, living, dinning room the kitchen and the swimming pool. And underneath it, on ground level there is a small enclosed area for services, a small accommodation for a housekeeping couple, a laundry and a deposit.

Iporanga House

The wood frame volume is the “private” part of the house, therefore on the street side it is enclosed by opaque boards (made of wood and covered on both faces with a cement slab), glass panels along with a nylon curtain, and on the forest side, aluminum sliding doors opening the rooms to a common veranda. This volume creates shade on the slab, which was used for the social area. This “middle” floor is almost an open space, protected on all sides by transparent temperate glass sliding panels, so the forest can be seen at all times. The intention was to minimize the difference between inner and outside space, making it work all as one integration area.

The structural concept of the house was inspired by small brook bridges typical from this litoraneal area. Rising from the foundation in humid soil, concrete columns support steel beams which support the wood frame. The use of steel was absolutely necessary in order to have only four columns to support the upper floor, thus reducing the number of interferences in the house social areas.

Iporanga House

As much as possible, Nitsche Arquitetos tried to make the construction an assembly of parts more than an onsite construction process for less waste at the building site, more agility and proper use of industrialized materials.

For the end users the advantages are low and easy maintenance, wide and open spaces in constant relation with the native surroundings.

Iporanga House

Project Summary
Architect	Nitsche Arquitetos Associados Lua Nitsche, Pedro Nitsche (authors), Renata Cupini, Suzana Barboza.
Developer	Tecsa Construtora
Engineering company	Ita Engenharia, Grau Engenharia
City	Guaruja SP
Country	Brazil
Region	Americas
Climate	Sub-tropical
Housing Type	Single family