{"id":235378,"date":"2024-08-15T16:05:45","date_gmt":"2024-08-15T20:05:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/?post_type=canvasflow&p=235378"},"modified":"2024-08-19T12:45:22","modified_gmt":"2024-08-19T16:45:22","slug":"modular-home-by-rodrigo-ohtake","status":"publish","type":"id_project","link":"https:\/\/interiordesign.net\/projects\/modular-home-by-rodrigo-ohtake\/","title":{"rendered":"Discover A Brazilian Modular Home Nestled In Nature\u2019s Embrace"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"blue
Comprising prefabricated steel modules manufactured by sysHaus, Ohtake principal Rodrigo Ohtake\u2019s 1,940-square-foot residence in Ibi\u00fana, Brazil, for him and his family is freestanding but appears embedded in the sloped site.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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August 15, 2024<\/p>\n\n\n

Words: <\/span>Michael Snyder<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photography: <\/span>Filippo Bamberghi\/Living Inside<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Discover A Brazilian Modular Home Nestled In Nature\u2019s Embrace<\/h1>\n\n\n

For the first three years of his life, Brazilian architect Rodrigo Ohtake lived in a S\u00e3o Paulo apartment building designed by his father, Ruy, and named for his grandmother, Tomie, a renowned abstract artist who painted the tower\u2019s white facade with oscillating bands of color. Completed in 1985, the building\u2019s powerful concrete construction gestured to the Paulista brutalism that Ruy Ohtake had learned as a student at the University of S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism\u2014the same school where his son would study in the early 2000\u2019s\u2014while its curved balconies suggested the sumptuous forms and colors that defined his later work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been an architect since I was born,\u201d says Rodrigo Ohtake, who merged his own small studio with his father\u2019s firm in 2021, following Ruy\u2019s death from cancer at age 83. \u201cMy family has been working in Brazilian culture for 60 years\u2014we have a kind of a tradition,\u201d he observes. \u201cBut we try to look to the future, not the past.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"blue
Comprising prefabricated steel modules manufactured by sysHaus, Ohtake principal Rodrigo Ohtake\u2019s 1,940-square-foot residence in Ibi\u00fana, Brazil, for him and his family is freestanding but appears embedded in the sloped site.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

That penchant for experimentation played a central role in the modular home that Ohtake built in 2023 for himself, his art-curator wife, and their three young children outside Ibi\u00fana, a hill-country town southwest of S\u00e3o Paulo. Designed by Ohtake and manufactured by sysHaus, a producer of prefabricated homes, the 1,940-square-foot country residence comprises four 10-by-20-foot steel prisms, each with a different typology but all containing a bedroom. These are arranged like a pinwheel around a central void, which accommodates the open-plan living space. Sliding glass doors opening onto the surrounding forest and 33-foot-long steel beams (the maximum size sysHaus can use without support columns) define the edges of the communal volume at the building\u2019s core. As in Brazil\u2019s colonial terrace houses, Ohtake notes, \u201cThe void is where the house happens.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To break with the orthogonal rigidity imposed by the prefabricated modules, Ohtake shielded the exposed corners of the bedroom units with freestanding, wavelike screens of blue perforated steel. This is almost an inversion of the house his father designed for his grandmother in 1968 and expanded through the decades as his aesthetic transformed. While the son uses curves to create privacy and blur his home\u2019s strictly rational silhouette, the father leveraged the open floor plan enabled by the floating concrete-canopy roof\u2014a typical feature of Paulista modernism\u2014to insert rounded dividing walls painted in vivid primary colors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"front
The green roof consists of a 6-inch-deep, free-form planter that sits atop the rectangular modules.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Ibi\u00fana house is capped with an exuberant, amoebalike roof cut from orange steel. This shape, Ohtake acknowledges, was partly inspired by his favorite structure in S\u00e3o Paulo: Oscar Niemeyer\u2019s Marquise do Ibirapuera, a covered pathway beneath a sinuous, white concrete-slab marquee that snakes between the trees in the city\u2019s most important park, connecting buildings and offering shelter from the intense subtropical sun and rain. For insulation, Ohtake topped most of the roof with 6 inches of soil in a free-form planter bursting with grasses and hanging vines. A grassy ramp curls up one flank of the house to merge with the roof at the back. Embraced by the earth and practically erased from view, the home becomes a steel cave enlivened by the intrusions of the surrounding landscape. \u201cWhen the wind blows, you almost feel the trees are inside the house\u2014a lot of leaves come in, which I think is marvelous,\u201d Ohtake enthuses. \u201cI wanted to show that industrial materials can be in harmony with nature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The entire project served as a proof-of-concept for prefabrication in a country where, for the most part, Ohtake says, \u201cWe are still doing architecture as if we were building pyramids, brick by brick, when we should be building more like LEGO.\u201d Despite pioneering architects like Jo\u00e3o Filgueiras Lima, better known as Lel\u00e9, who began developing ingenious modular construction systems in the 1960\u2019s and continued innovating through the \u201980\u2019s, Ohtake believes most Brazilians still associate prefabrication with American-style cabinet construction introduced in the \u201970\u2019s. That flimsy, disposable approach held little appeal for families that regard their homes as patrimony for their children. \u201cWe can only prove that these houses are permanent by building them,\u201d he asserts, something sysHaus will do when it starts shipping its first Ohtake-designed modular homes across the country later this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In the TV area, a Zig-Zag chair and stool, Ninho sofa, and Meandre rug, all by Ohtake.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Backing Oscar Niemeyer\u2019s Praiana chaise lounge in the living area, sail-like Caravela shelving by Ohtake\u2019s late architect father Ruy.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

For Ohtake, modular-systems architecture is, above all, an extension of a generations-long inheritance of materializing a future that looks different from the past. That forward-looking attitude expresses itself in the Ibi\u00fana house, of course, but even more powerfully in the way the family uses it. \u201cI don\u2019t have to worry about toys,\u201d the architect reports. \u201cThe kids just go into nature to play with wood and leaves, stones and sand.\u201d Educated to value rationality but raised to question its primacy, Ohtake worries over the future of a society that trains young people out of creativity in favor of more reliably profitable skills. \u201cI\u2019m trying to tell my children, \u2018Use your sense of play, it will help you in your future,\u2019 which is something I can say from experience,\u201d he concludes. \u201cThe world is too serious. We should have more play.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inside This Modular Home In Brazil<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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At the back of the house, bridges connect the lushly planted green roof to the surrounding grassy landscape.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"living
A Delgadina armchair, Ninho club chair, and Tri coffee tables, also all by Ohtake, join Jos\u00e9 Zanine Caldas\u2019s Sela sling chair in the living area, where flooring is vinyl.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Stairs lead down to the sheltered entry courtyard, which is enlivened by a pair of recycled-polyethylene Sugar Loaf chairs by Ohtake.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Backdropped by native forest, a seating vignette of Ohtake\u2019s colorful outdoor furniture.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"person
Behind the freestanding perforated-metal screen, a paved service zone.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"kitchen
Integrated workstations in stainless steel and MDF forming the open kitchen.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"main
Sequestered in its own glass-wall module, the main bedroom.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The bedroom\u2019s floor and ceiling are vinyl.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"front
The diaphanous screens not only provide color and privacy but also help soften the modular structure\u2019s hard-edged geometries.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"swimming
The pool is located behind the house on the lot\u2019s highest point so as to interrupt the relationship between the interiors and the natural surroundings as little as possible.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"a
The architect, his art-curator wife, Ana Carolina Ralston, sons Ivan and Tom, and daughter Lia enjoy the seamless indoor-outdoor lifestyle the sliding glass doors afford.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
PROJECT TEAM<\/h6><\/div>\n\n\n\n

OHTAKE: <\/strong>ANDREI DA SILVA; LEONARDO ROCHA; ISABELLA MARTINI; CARLA STELLA. SYSHAUS:<\/strong> GENERAL CONTRACTOR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PRODUCT SOURCES<\/h6><\/div>\n\n\n\n

FROM FRONT AM\u00c9RICA M\u00d3VEIS:<\/strong> CLUB CHAIR (LIVING AREA), SOFA (TV AREA). ARTI M\u00d3VEIS:<\/strong> ARM-CHAIR, COFFEE TABLES (LIVING AREA), SIDE TABLE (LIVING AREA, TV AREA). 31 MOBILI\u00c1RIO:<\/strong> SLING CHAIR (LIVING AREA), CHAIR, STOOL (TV AREA). PUNTO E FILO:<\/strong> RUGS (LIVING AREA, TV AREA) TETO VIN\u00cdLICO:<\/strong> VINYL CEILING (BEDROOM). MEKAL:<\/strong> WORKSTATIONS (KITCHEN). THROUGHOUT JAPI:<\/strong> OUT-DOOR FURNITURE. TARKETT:<\/strong> VINYL FLOORING.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n