DESIGN NAME: Grabowski
PRIMARY FUNCTION: House
INSPIRATION: The design of Grabowski House started with the site itself. As you approach from above, the intention was to create a huge garden on top, in order to make the construction disappear on the landscape and make it work as a visual bridge connecting to the slopes of the valley that splits the land of 350.000 square meters.
A long green slab connects the roof to the slope behind. With 20 meters long, covers the entrance hall that is located on the upper floor, where all the bedrooms are.
UNIQUE PROPERTIES / PROJECT DESCRIPTION: The U shaped upper floor covers the veranda, dining room and home theatre. The central empty space, double ceiling, is where the living room and sculpture garden are located.
The main architectural concept was to create a veranda, 20 meters long, without any pilars. The bedrooms on the upper floor are projected over that veranda, without any vertical support. The lack of pilars reinforce the idea of integration between the inside and the outside, connecting the architecture to the garden itself.
OPERATION / FLOW / INTERACTION: The owners are art collectors so the highlight of this residence is the sculpture garden at the main level, with the living both connected to it both with double ceiling and part of glass roofing bringing natural light to the interiors. Both sides of the upper floor are connected by a steel bridge crossing the double ceiling and splitting living room from the internal garden. On the sculpture garden we commissioned the Brazilian artist Ernesto Neto for a site specific art installation.
PROJECT DURATION AND LOCATION: The Project took us 12 months of work. The construction lasted 24 months. The residence is located at Itaipava, the main mountain retreat near Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
FITS BEST INTO CATEGORY: Architecture, Building and Structure Design
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PRODUCTION / REALIZATION TECHNOLOGY: For finishing, just natural materials were choosen, specialy raw concrete on the walls, wood on the ceiling and flooring and natural stone on some details. Natural materials age well, with digninity, interacts with the nature and as they get old, they evidence the acceptance of the architecture by the Nature.
SPECIFICATIONS / TECHNICAL PROPERTIES: Site area: 348.078,22m2
Construction area: 762,87m2
TAGS: Country House, Audacious Structure, Green Roof, Artsy, Double Ceiling
RESEARCH ABSTRACT: The main technical difficulty of this project is linked to the structural design. We wanted half of the upper floor to be balanced over the veranda, so we researched on a metal structural system called Vierendeel, much used in the construction of bridges, that would permit the execution of the complex structure desired. Another issue that we dedicated ourselves was the impermeabilization of the roof of the house, because of the installation of the garden over it.
CHALLENGE: The solution for the engineer query was the use of the Vierendeel truss. That kind of truss of rectangular openings were used on the frontal and lateral facades. That is the exterior structural skeleton of the house that permitted us to have the bedrooms on the upper floor over the veranda without any support. The Vierendeel truss results from the system that connects the lower and the upper steel beam with vertical slim pilars.
ADDED DATE: 2019-02-26 13:36:33
TEAM MEMBERS (5) : Miguel Pinto Guimarães, Renata Duhá, Adriana Moura, Vinicius Cesar and Leticia Correa
IMAGE CREDITS: Image #1: Photographer Leonardo Finotti
Image #2: Photographer Leonardo Finotti
Image #3: Photographer Leonardo Finotti
Image #4: Photographer Leonardo Finotti
Image #5: Photographer Leonardo Finotti
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