Bocaina-Paraty House / Cicero Ferraz Cruz + Fábio Mosaner

Architecture is more than just construction; it is first and foremost an idea. The idea for this house was to poetically imagine a situation where the stones had always been there, rearranged by nature, like a timeless ruin. Embedded precisely in the best site, on the sunniest slope, protected from southerly winds and open to the sun from the north. Our ruin would be in the exact place, chosen after months of observation and appreciation: we are thus making a brand new ruin! This is not a delicate site plan, no. The house does not "rest" on the land, it does not touch the earth with pilotis, and it is not structurally brash. It is a blunt site plan, embedded in the slope, blooming from the soil.