Brazilian architect Marcio Kogan and his architecture firm Studio MK27 have designed the Bahia House, a single story home located in Salvador, the largest city on the northeast coast of Brazil. “The Bahia House is an ecological house. But, not in the technological sense, not in the contemporary sense of the word “sustainability”, it does not have the very latest state-of-the-art gadgets that make it possible to optimize electric expenditure. The organization of the floor plan and the use of materials come close to those of traditional architecture. The builders of bahian traditional houses have long-known how to keep interiors cool even with a blazing sun of more than 40ºC, long before the corbusian ideas had been tropicalized or even before Sir Norman Foster had given a precise, technological and scientific dimension to sustainable architecture. The Bahia House uses all these elements that are traditional to Brazilian houses. These adjustments of the Portuguese house to a tropical climate were always studied and applied by modernism in Brazil. The result in this case is a very pleasant house, where the interior protects from the hot and sunny climate outdoors.
