Located in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, the São Bento residence sits on a sloping lot with neighbors close by on both sides. Working with those challenges, Anastasia Arquitetos designed this modern concrete structure that has privacy, excellent light exposure, and maximum square footage. The biggest challenge of the house was the site itself, and its strong ascent, at its greatest extent confined by buildings on both sides. In the end, the result shows a strong and respectful presence in the context which it appears: a very nice house where the shape does not compromise internal space, on the contrary, this is the consequence.
The idea was to get the most possible exposure of the intimate area, on the second floor, to the morning sun, and also to the best sight. The solution was to extend the floor diagonally on the lower floor, creating a terrace for the intimate area, so that all bedrooms face east, which would not be possible if all were side by side. The spatial distribution was designed to take advantage of the terrain. Thus the space under the house was used for parking of vehicles and laundry. At the ground level is the social and service’s areas (living, dining, kitchen, service area, maid’s room – being the living and the kitchen integrated with the balcony and the pool), and also there is a guest room. On the second floor we have the bedrooms and an intimate lounge.
The structure of the house is concrete. To tilt the outer wall, balancing the cover slab 80cm over the slab bottom we tied the bricks to each 1.50 meters with concrete pillars, since it would be very expensive and also would overload the structure of the house if the wall were made of concrete.
