Charlotte Taylor, founder of Maison de Sable and Nicholas Préaud, founder of ni.acki present their first collaboration, the Casa Atibaia an ethereal project in tribute to Brazilian modernism inspired by Lina Bo Bardi’s Casa de Vidro. Located on the Atibaia river in São Paulo, Casa Atibaia is a home that inhabits the forest by coexisting around and in-between the landscape rather than imposing on nature. For us Brazilian modernism is all about living inside with the illusion of being outside, the purity and elegance of ramps and staircases gently swirling around in a contemplative nature with a lightness of glass façades.
Casa Atibaia sits between this delicate and airy essence and a more brutal and primitive aspect. The structure of the home follows the geometric modernist principles yet opens up onto an expansive organic inner courtyard that curves and responds to the surrounding vegetation, bridging a gap between the outside and inside. This boundary is further broken down by the landscape itself acting as a supporting element of the home; the entire structure is built around pre-existing rocks as natural pilotis, a more brutalist take on the modernist language.
These rocks also occupy the interior to a functional extent, the bathroom and dressing room is carved entirely out of such forms with the smaller rocks acting as furnishing elements, dictating the fluid layout of the home. The residing furniture is a balance of modernist gems, antique pieces and more contemporary additions with the likes of Pierre Augustin Rose, Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Chapo.
