São Paulo’s traditional “vilas” (small blocks of houses nested within the borough, with small two-story houses, known as “sobradrinhos”, usually arranged around a common yard opening on to the street) are pleasant places, which encourage a sense of communal living. In most instances, linear, front-narrow building lots result in poor housing solutions with limited natural lighting and ventilation. However, for this project, the irregular shape (5.40 meters front by 11 meters deep; and a length varying from 34 meters to 22.40 meters, totaling an area of 248.56 square meters), led Brazilian architect Siegbert Zanettini to adopt a different solution, generating a reversal of concepts.

In an area where typically a narrow house would be built, a broad and empty transition space has been created, with a sidewalk, a garden, and a parking lot. The building utilizes the back of the block, where the area had been doubled with the acquisition of the rear portion of the neighbor’s lot. The result is a pleasant design allowing for better ventilation and lighting.

Through the ground-floor doorway, you enter an open 127.60 square-meter hall with no pillars or walls, and privacy preserved by sliding doors. This space is open plan, comprising the living, dining and kitchen areas. Its double floor, with a six-meter open space for the living and dining areas, is built on a 2.70 meter-high, metal-framed mezzanine. The ground floor also includes a toilet, laundry, bedroom and service bathroom. Steel-framed stairs lead to the upper floor on the mezzanine, where there are two further bedrooms separated by movable partitions. This mezzanine level creates a structural gap, filled above by zenithal light, which assures the passage of natural light through to the downstairs area.

The energy efficient use of natural light and ventilation are achieved through large glazed openings (6mx1.50m glass sheets) in the wide front area and the courtyard off the living-room, in addition to the zenithal opening enabled by the mezzanine set-back. The house is mostly white, increasing the feeling of wide spaces; the whole ground floor has been covered with 1mx1m white concrete sheets. The monochrome style is interrupted by a large colored panel made with glazed mosaic-tiles, designed by Zanettini himself, which covers the entire living-room side wall with double floor height.

Steel, a material intensively used by Zanettini over the last 40 years, has been used to support the mezzanine floor (ASTM A-572-G50 steel), providing lightness to the environments and creating large internal, pillar-free rooms. Pre-molded slabs have been placed on the mezzanine’s exposed steel framework. The house’s external closing structure has been made of reinforced concrete, and the open spaces have been filled with ceramic bricks.