Eucalyptus House | Cabana Arquitetos

This small house is located high in the Mantiqueira Mountains of southeastern Brazil. The clients, a young couple, asked Andre Eisenlohr of Cabana Arquitetos to design an environmentally-friendly home for their hillside site. The house incorporates passive solar and is built mostly of wood sourced from sustainably-managed forests.

The small house has a straightforward rectangular floor plan of 50 m² (538 ft²). The bedroom, bathroom and open plan living space were arranged in a row so that all the rooms would get a panoramic view of the valley below.

To minimize disruption to the site, the house was raised above the slope on eucalyptus poles. Diagonal steel cables brace the poles against movement in either direction. With the walls not required to provide bracing, the south wall could be devoted to windows. A short bridge is used to reach the entry deck on one end of the house, and another deck stretches along the south side.

While Brazil is known for its tropical climate, the high mountain areas have much more moderate year-round temperatures. As such, the clients wanted to incorporate some passive solar heating into the design. The challenge was that they did not want to be exposed to view from the road above on the north (sunny) side of the house. The architect’s solution was to design an unusual row of floor-level windows along on the north side. The low windows let in light and warmth while maintaining privacy. Solar collectors were also installed on the north side for water heating.

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Photographs by Andre Eisenlohr, courtesy of Cabana Arquitetos. Via ArchDaily.

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