studio MK27 defines its são paulo 3V house with a glowing timber screen

studio MK27 situates its ‘3V house’ among a gardened neighborhood in são paulo, an area commonly subjected to heavy flooding. in response to the site’s geographic condition, the design team elevates the topography beneath the house and its garden relative to the street level, protecting it from the flooding rains. the project, photographed by fernando guerra, is defined by a glowing timber screen which seems to float above an exposed concrete portico with a span of nearly sixty feet. the program of the ground floor is organized within a single opaque volume enclosed by two sliding glass doors, which might transform into an immense terrace that connects with the front and back gardens of the house.

all images by fernando guerra

studio MK27 curates the house with attention to a contrast in its material identity through transparency, concrete and stone. these heavy walls which define the limits between the front and back of the plot are emphasized by the luminous, transparent screen above. the external walls made of horizontal strips of brute stone reverberate with the alignment of the printed wooden boards on the concrete surface. the large spam achieved by the portico is supported with a combined structure of steel and concrete. as some of this structure is hidden by the wooden box, the apparent width of this slab is similar to the side walls, offering an incredible lightness to this structure.

studio MK27 clads the upper volume of the property with slender, vertical wooden panels, present on each façade. with this condition, the interior programming looks outward uniformly with one façade treatment. the verticality of the thin wooden strips offers a counterpoint to the horizontal marks of the exposed concrete. the third floor is expressed as a small receding volume that rests atop a terraced garden covering the house. there, on its highest point, the occupant can view the scenery of the floodplains surrounding nearby pinheiros river.