How can you intervene in a such powerful place and what kind of relationship can architecture establish with nature in this situation? Reaching by boat the beach where Paraty House is located, architecture is somewhat delayed in showing itself through the midst of the dense forest. This aspect is difficult to capture in photographs. At the same time that architecture seeks to create distance from nature as an artificial gesture, it becomes part of the landscape.

Thus, if on the one hand Paraty House builds a second nature – in concrete and glass –, then on the other, the local tropical vegetation easily envelops the house, mimicking the construction. The dialectic relationship between man-nature is the very radicalism of this project.

Even combined with sophisticated structural calculation, the organization of the program still obeys a simple scheme. The bottom concrete volume hosts collective and utility areas; while the upper prism – with its 8-meter cantilever and a 27-meter span – houses the suites.

One single column – exposed in an interlude-connecting-floor, encapsulated by glass – organizes the vertical circulation and reveals structural secrets.

Interiors received client’s art collections, mainly of the Brazilian pop movement from the 70’s, and furnitures from the 20th century designed by, among others, George Nakashima, Luis Barragan, Lina Bo Bardi, Sérgio Rodrigues, Joaquim Tenreiro and José Zanine Caldas.

Previous projects had already given some international projection for mk27, but it is the Paraty House which opened significant doors to an internationalization of the studio because of the work wide publication all over the world.

Gabriel Kogan