The TN Residence was conceived from the union of climate adaptation and affective memory. The project fulfills the desire of the owner, who originally hails from Bahia, to translate the sunny, tropical atmosphere of his origins to the challenging, humid, and rainy climate of Joinville, in Southern Brazil. The house functions as a cultural mediation device, organizing the daily life of a couple and their two children around a continuous garden, treated as an active well-being infrastructure. The architectural result preserves the soul of a Bahian summer house, combined with the technical rigor required to provide shelter and comfort in the South.
Zoning and Integration with the Landscape
The flat terrain faces two streets, which allowed for a strategic layout designed to protect domestic intimacy.
- The social access is located on the west face of the plot.
- The east facade concentrates all the daily logistics and service access.
- Between these two fronts lies the longitudinal ground floor volume that houses the social areas, flanked by a green belt.
- This landscaping performs an essential ecosystemic service: managing soil drainage and creating a milder microclimate.
The social area strategically opens to the north, utilizing large floor-to-ceiling frames that dissolve the boundaries between the living room and the outdoors. The sense of spaciousness is reinforced by the continuity of the flooring extending out to the pool area, inviting outdoor living under the protection of generous eaves.
On the ground floor, the circulation functions as a spine connecting the spaces. The program also features a home theater, a guest suite, and a veranda in symbiosis with the garden , alongside design elements such as a continuous bench along the prayer plant (marantas) bed, acting as a soft visual filter that replaces rigid walls with breathing vegetative barriers. The outdoor garden path culminates in an orchard and a hammock area, designed as a decompression refuge that rescues the ancestral habit of resting in the open air and reaffirms the house's vocation for silence and contemplation.
Bioclimatic Strategies and Materiality
The upper floor, dedicated to the private area, adopts rigorous bioclimatic strategies to reduce energy dependence and ensure technical efficiency.
- All suites are oriented to the north.
- Protection against direct solar radiation is provided by deep eaves and a wide balcony with potted vegetation.
- Cross-ventilation is enhanced by the stack effect through skylights in the bathrooms, which exhaust hot air while introducing diffuse natural light.
- To the south, the circulation and a technical balcony protect the bedrooms, creating a thermal buffer against the elements.
The materiality of the project seeks a tectonic honesty intended to age with dignity. The use of exposed concrete and slatted wood dialogues directly with the exuberant landscaping. Composed of species such as heliconias and alpinias, the greenery not only decorates but also passively cools the building.
