Cipó House

Iuri Poletti

• Architects

Surrounded by nature and built around a Cipó, the house in the south of Bahia has a timeless layout, sustainable techniques and a lot of Brazilianness in a project signed by Fernanda Berendt, Daniel Fromer and Kika Camasmie.

photo_credit Iuri Poletti — Iuri Poletti

São Paulo, 2023 - A cozy, welcoming house that transmits calmness and joy, both for the residents and for receiving friends. These were the wishes of a couple who have a busy social life and like to receive many guests. The owner and interior designer, Fernanda Berendt, always wanted a house that would express her passion for Bahia, with a lot of Brazilianness! As the project was a dream coming true, she actively participated in its demands, giving attention to the smallest details and, as her husband is an Italian who loves cooking and cheering up his guests with good food, the kitchen was one of the points in which she gave emphasis to the layout and production. With this dream in hands, the Daniel Fromer & Arquitetos office, led by architect Daniel Fromer and co-authored by Kika Kamasmie, executed this 498m² project that, besides everything, has as its landscape a paradisiacal place, the Mirror Beach, in Bahia.

As the construction of the house began in the first phase of the pandemic - the most severe - this resulted in the concept of valuing what they already had, a journey to the core of the "selfie" and recognition of their strongest virtues and desires. With the understanding of the simple, the appreciation of others, and the sophistication of the simple, the designer understood the conceptions she would give to the house. Fernanda decided that the house would have a neutral palette, with the colors of earth, clay, wood, would not have coatings that would close this connection with the elements of the house, nor that would draw too much attention, she wanted it to be porous, a house that breathed and had a connection with nature, with the simple and natural.

The location influenced - and a lot - another of the owner's wishes, since one of the requests was that the house had a "touch" of the Bahian writer Jorge Amado, and that it would gain the air of one of his most famous novels and become a chic contemporary version of "Gabriela Cravo e Canela". In addition, the house was implanted around a Cipó tree, the main reason why she chose the land. The passion went beyond the tree and the land, extending to the production of the house and also in the interior design. The owner, Fernanda Berendt, saw one of her dreams come true, mixing the influence of Jorge Amado's literature, the furniture and other local resources, participating actively, choosing all the details of the layout and production of the property.

The privileged area was the social and living area. So that everyone could flow between the preferred environments and connect easily, the living room-balcony opens to the garden and integrates with the kitchen, making the most of the usable area of both spaces. Besides the social core, a living room connects the intimate core, which houses the suite of the couple and their two daughters.
Thinking about the comfort of the friends who often come over, the architect designed and executed another core, implementing three suites, a TV room, and an office that serves as support for the days of work at home, thought so that concentration here is a strong point for those who use it or even want a moment of calm and isolation. The intention here was to execute a simple, timeless layout that reminds us of the houses in the South of Bahia. The interior design follows and complements the timelessness of the house, bringing freshness in the chosen palette and materials.

To create a layout of a local, Brazilian, and unpretentious house, sustainability techniques were widely used in this project. On the walls, whitewashed masonry was used, ceramic tile flooring from locally produced terraces, thigh-high tiles reused from old buildings in the Chapada Diamantina and window frames made from demolition peroba. For the labor, the interior designer and the architect also preferred to use local labor. Fernanda recalls that, due to the pandemic, the region, which lives basically from tourism, had its income greatly affected, so she made sure that the house - and all the other items, both the production and the décor - had to be made as much as possible by local producers. The partnership worked so well that it was extended to other projects in the region - besides the concern in using sustainable techniques, the project focused on the importance of the functionality of each environment.

To keep the temperature of the house mild and always airy, the layout of the rooms was arranged so that ventilation and natural lighting were extremely valued, reducing even the use of air conditioning. Besides the reforestation wood, the furniture, lighting fixtures, and metals were mostly produced locally.

Complementing the very Brazilian and timeless layout, the landscaping, signed by Rodrigo Oliveira, used pre-existing native species, and worked around the Cipó, giving the feeling that the garden has always belonged to that house, providing freshness to the work.