São Paulo-based studio Nitsche Arquitetos Associados has designed the Casa en Praia Preta project. The architects have completely remodeled this single story contemporary home located on Preta Beach in Sao Sebastiao, a city in the state of São Paulo on the southeast coast of Brazil. The house is implanted in a strip of land between the sea and the mountains of the Serra do Mar. Both ecosystems are extremely exuberant. The mountains are covered with the native Atlantic forest (the most bio-diversified ecosystem on the planet). The beach is quite small, and scarcely occupied. The sea water is crystalline, protected by small Atlantic-Ocean islands. All floors and finishings have been removed and a new roof structure has been added, so as to augment the ceiling height. Remodeling had the purpose of strengthen the house’s feature of being a liaison to the natural forces. The private area has been split in identical parts and the living spaces have been joined together into a single roomy space. The house is a large rectangular platform with its longer sides parallel to the beach. The building is virtually resting on the beach sand. One of the two largest façades faces the beach and the other looks at the mountains. These large façades are composed of wide apertures and broad linear verandas. Parallel verandas in opposed façades help in the circulation for the different rooms.The veranda is also a special-featured space. It acts as an extension of the beach sand, which is also traditionally a common-use space. The room’s sliding doors’ total aperture allows the room to make a whole with the veranda, therefore with the beach. So the house has now a single conviviality space; a “room-veranda-beach” space. The tactile beach sensation has also determined the choice of the sandstone-type floor.
