{"id":202394,"date":"2022-11-01T15:54:30","date_gmt":"2022-11-01T19:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/?post_type=id_project&p=202394"},"modified":"2023-01-09T09:18:54","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T14:18:54","slug":"outdoor-living-sao-paulo-fcstudio","status":"publish","type":"id_project","link":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/projects\/outdoor-living-sao-paulo-fcstudio\/","title":{"rendered":"A S\u00e3o Paulo Abode by FCstudio Prioritizes Outdoor Living"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The garden features a firepit and perforated-metal benches, all custom, and a spalike dipping pool.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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November 1, 2022<\/p>\n\n\n

Words: <\/span>Marisa Bartolucci<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photography: <\/span>Andr\u00e9 Mortatti<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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A S\u00e3o Paulo Abode by FCstudio Prioritizes Outdoor Living<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

2022 Best of Year Winner<\/a> for Small City House<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you live in S\u00e3o Paulo, a city with a subtropical climate, you want as much outdoor living space as possible. Which is exactly why Casa Bento was commissioned. Its owners, a fortysomething couple who also work together, were frustrated by the limitations of their previous residence. A traditional house with conventional rooms, there was no flow between the various domestic spaces, much less with the surrounding garden. The couple, who have two young daughters, now 10 and 6 years old, dreamed of a home where they could indulge their love of entertaining family and friends\u2014indoors and out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Enter architect Flavio Castro, who founded his firm FCstudio with the conviction that architecture should be responsive to the ways people live\u2014and that those ways are always changing. The clients had acquired a lot for their dream house on Rua Bento de Andrade\u2014hence the name Casa Bento\u2014the very street where both had grown up, in the highly de\u00adsirable Jardim Paulista neighborhood. It\u2019s a verdant section of the city, but also a busy and crowded one. So chief among Castro\u2019s initial concerns was to conceive a plan that would exclude the bustle of the street and views of adjacent neighbors, while still feeling open, airy, and fully integrated into a lushly landscaped property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Large Cor-Ten steel shutters form a dramatic brise-soleil enclosing the main bedroom of a house in S\u00e3o Paulo by FCstudio.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

FCstudio designs an airy, urban retreat<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The architect\u2019s solution, a 4,560-square-foot, two-story structure that sits in the middle of the walled lot, resembles a metal box perched on thick board-formed concrete sidewalls. The ground-floor end facades are fully glazed, a transparency that visually links the entry hall with the parking courtyard in the front and merges the indoor and outdoor living areas in the back. The second story, by contrast, is clad in folded steel lamina\u2014the same material used for the street fence, a large part of which pivots upward like a giant garage door to admit cars\u2014and topped with a narrow clerestory. During the day, the upper level presents a blank face to passersby, but at night it\u2019s crowned by a halolike band of light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The metal box opens up at the back, however, where a continuous ribbon of sliding glass windows runs across most of the rear facade before turning the corner to extend along part of the sidewall. The glazing encloses the main bedroom, admitting abundant natural light along with views of the green garden oasis below. The windows are fitted with enormous shutters that form a striking brise-soleil, which not only deflects the often-intense sun but also provides complete privacy and quiet when fully closed. The structure\u2019s pivoting vanes are made of Cor-Ten steel\u2014as is the front door\u2014a favorite material of Castro\u2019s since it\u2019s honest, weathers well in the local climate, and has a handsome texture and color that harmonize with the house\u2019s concrete, steel, and surrounding greenery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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See Interior Design\u2019s Best of Year Winners and Honorees<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Explore must-see projects and products that took home high honors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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2022 WINNERS<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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A spacious patio for entertaining outdoors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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The ground level is all about entertaining. Located in the back of the house, the social gathering zone comprises a large living-dining area flanked by a spacious patio and the garden on one side and a galley kitchen on the other. Essentially an elegant box clad inside and out with sumptuous pau ferro wood, the kitchen features a wide, proscenium-like passthrough that allows cook, family, and guests to converse freely while meals are being prepared. A row of simple Fernando Prado pendant fixtures hanging above a custom jatoba wood table defines the dining area, while a sofa, an armchair by S\u00e9rgio Rodrigues, and a bench by Claudia Moreira Salles form a seating group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sheltered by the second-floor overhang, the patio is outfitted with a long concrete dining table by Matthias Ambros von Holleben and an outdoor kitchen, also made of concrete, with distinctive teak doors. The patio\u2019s cement pavers extend into the garden to frame a small dipping pool; a metal firepit and pair of perforated-metal benches incorporating clever built-in side tables and cachepots\u2014all by FCstudio<\/a>\u2014sit nearby on the lush green lawn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A dramatic blackened-steel staircase, suspended like a Donald Judd sculpture from the entry hall ceiling, rises to the family bedrooms on the second floor. The open landing at the top of the stair runs the full width of the house and is deep enough to double as a home theater. The window walls at each end of the long space can be darkened with curtains and steel lamina shutters, but the clerestory overhead provides soft natural light during the day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The cantilevered second story shelters the patio and outdoor kitchen from sun and rain.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The S\u00e3o Paulo home offers plenty of space to play<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A long corridor down the side of the house leads to the daughters\u2019 bedrooms and the main suite beyond. Each of the girls\u2019 rooms features a platform bed playfully enclosed by a painted-steel frame in the form of a gable roof; built-in storage closets and drawers line the opposite wall. The children also have a play area in the basement, which is reached by a floating concrete stair as strikingly sculptural as its steel counterpart on the floor above. Staff quarters, service areas, and storage spaces are also found on this level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Casa Bento may have been named for its street address, but the house has more than a little in common with the traditional Japanese lunch box its moniker evokes. Both achieve a masterful balance of the functional and the aesthetic\u2014each a microcosm in which every element has its perfectly judged place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The dining area\u2019s table in Brazilian jatoba wood and steel and the living area\u2019s two-piece cocktail table, in Cor-Ten and marble, are custom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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\"The
The galley kitchen is almost entirely clad in pau ferro, also known as Bolivian rosewood.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Concrete\u2009\u2014\u2009board-formed on the walls, polished on the floors\u2009\u2014adds to the subtle play of different textures throughout the ground level.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"The
The garden features a firepit and perforated-metal benches, all custom, and a spalike dipping pool.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A floating concrete stair with LED up-lights leads to the basement playroom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A custom painted-steel canopy in the shape of a gable brings whimsy to a child\u2019s bedroom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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The glazed ground-floor front facade integrates the entry hall with the parking courtyard.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The 4,560-square-foot house comprises a concrete-and-glass ground floor containing social spaces, topped by boxlike volume clad in folded steel lamina for bedrooms and family areas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"the
In addition to the house and interiors, FCstudio designed the exterior lighting and landscaping to ensure the seamless integration of indoor and outdoor entertaining spaces, a client priority.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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A suspended welded-steel stair provides access to the second-floor family zones.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The second-floor stair landing doubles as a home theater. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The steel lamina fence pivots up for access to the parking court; otherwise, the street facade is blank, except for a lanternlike clerestory. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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When the windows and brise-soleil panels are opened, tropical greenery envelops the main bedroom, where flooring is cumaru, a Brazilian hardwood used throughout the home\u2019s second level.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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