We love a good indoor-outdoor house. That is, a private residence that makes use of a temperate—or tropical—climate by orienting rooms around open-air courtyards, or by making seamless connections between a living room inside and a garden or yard outside.
Perhaps nowhere does this best than Brazil (though southern California and parts of Australia are hot on Brazil's heels in this regard), where the weather suits itself to this kind of relaxation of interior and exterior boundaries.
Case in point: the two-story glass-and-steel MLA House in São Paulo by local firm Jacobsen Arquitetura, which centers on a double-height living room that is essentially an expansive covered porch, with an elegantly wood-paneled ceiling and floors of polished stone. On the house's rear facade, which abuts the long garden, shutters on the upper level (where bedrooms and baths are situated) help provide privacy and screen upper windows from the sun and rain.
Like any well-designed private dwelling commissioned by Brazil's 1 percent, the house also comes with a pool and covered terrace. Take a look.
- jacobsen arquitetura visually blends inside and outside with são paulo house [Designboom]
- Brazil Modern: Celebrating the Country's Unsung Modernist Furniture Designers [Curbed]
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- Ikea's New Brazil-Inspired Collection Is Delightfully Pattern-Crazy [Curbed]
- All Homes coverage [Curbed]