Project Name: House in Praia do Forte

Location: Praia do forte, Brazil

Design Team: Vereda Arquitetos

Total Floor Area: 630 m²

Completion: 2023

Photography: Nelson Kon

Feature:

Project - Vereda Arquitetos has completed the House in Praia do Forte, situated on a 1260 m² flat plot just 300 meters from the beach in Brazil's coastal 'restinga' ecosystem. This 630-square-meter residence employs a longitudinal design that maximizes views of the surrounding protected areas with their unique regional flora.

The house is meticulously organized into three independent program blocks: The social block integrates the living room, dining area, and kitchen with the outdoors through retractable glass windows, transforming the space into a large veranda overlooking the pool and solarium; the master bedroom block includes the master bedroom and bathroom on the ground floor, with a study room and atelier on the upper floor, each offering opposing views; the third block accommodates additional bedrooms (for the owners' daughters), guest rooms, and service areas, organized over two levels with front and rear property views.

These three blocks are connected by a central circulation axis with levels offset by half-flights of stairs. This innovative arrangement means that from the pool level, only half a flight of stairs is needed to reach either the lower or upper levels. The design creates partially sunken lower-level bedrooms that offer a more comfortable and diverse ambiance compared to the upper-level accommodations, while the intermediate-level social block provides expanded views and convenient access.

The construction employs a layered material strategy: a base of local natural stone forms the solarium, pool, entrance gardens, and retaining walls; a reinforced concrete structure built upon this stone base consists of six 3-meter-high concrete walls that define the program blocks and extend beyond interior spaces to form gardens; these 20-centimeter-thick walls with exposed concrete finish support upper-floor slabs, facade planters, and a central rainwater collection gutter; the final layer comprises wooden roofs and shading louvers, with shingle roof planes directing rainwater to the central gutter.

As a contemporary contribution to the coastal landscape of Mata de São João, this beach house demonstrates Vereda Arquitetos' excellent balance of environmental sensitivity and architectural innovation.

Design Team - Founded in 2013, Vereda Arquitetos develops architectural projects that combine inventive capacity, constructive viability, sustainability, and architectural excellence through a rigorous and attentive project development process. The studio views architecture as an activity that can contribute to the advancement of knowledge; recognizing that despite the scale and complexity of our cities, architecture still plays a fundamental role in their production, especially through its symbolic role and the construction of ideas.

Vereda Arquitetos is based in São Paulo and undertakes projects across diverse fields, from furniture design to larger architectural projects. Its architects maintain strong academic engagement, understanding this participation as fundamental to the intellectual production of the studio and as a way to contribute to the formation of new architects and the advancement of the discipline. Through both intellectual and built project production, Vereda aims to contribute to the transformation of cities: to make them places of full personal realization and expression of our best collective ideals.

The studio is led by founding partner João Paulo Meirelles de Faria, who graduated from the University of São Paulo's Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism (FAU USP) in 2002, obtained a Master's degree from Harvard Graduate School of Design in 2012, and is currently pursuing doctoral studies at FAU USP (2023-2026). He has taught Architecture and Urbanism courses at Escola da Cidade and São Judas University. The team includes architect Bruno Manso, who graduated from São Judas Tadeu University (USJT) in 2017, earned a Master's degree from FAU USP in 2022, and has collaborated with Vereda since 2015, becoming an associate in 2022.

This integration of academia and practice creates a productive tension in Vereda's work, where each project becomes a vehicle for intellectual inquiry while remaining grounded in architectural pragmatism. The studio's design philosophy aims to transform cities into spaces that express collective ideals while fostering personal fulfillment through thoughtful architectural interventions.