Felipe Hess Arquitetos Pushes a São Paulo House to the Edge of Its Corner Lot to Free a 600 m² Garden

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This article covers topics related to Residential Building, Commercial Buildings. On a 1,000 m² corner lot in São Paulo, a brick, timber and concrete house claims only 40% of the ground and turns every room toward one continuous garden.

Most large urban houses in São Paulo treat the garden as what is left over once the building has taken its share. Jacarezinho II House, completed in 2025 by Felipe Hess Arquitetos, reverses that order. On a corner lot of roughly one thousand square meters, the house is pushed hard against one side of the plot and covers about 40% of the ground. The other 60%, around 600 m², stays open as a single continuous garden, and the existing trees stay where they were.

That decision is the project. Once the garden comes first, everything else follows from it: the stepped section, the planted ledges, the deep timber soffits, the round columns and the rule that every room faces the open ground. What interests us is how firmly the house commits to this idea. It does not hedge with a token lawn and a few framed views. It gives up footprint, frontage and some privacy to the street in exchange for a landscape that reads as the main room of the house.

A House That Steps Back from Its Own Garden

Rear facade with timber-lined soffits and planter boxes above a lawn and curved pool under a bright cloudy sky

Rear facade of stacked timber-slatted floors with planter boxes, stepping stones and a curved pool edge under a cloudy sky

Garden view of the stepped timber-soffit house with planter boxes, a curved pool and palms under a partly cloudy sky

Curved pool edge in the foreground with the covered porch, round columns and planter boxes behind a green lawn

Framed view through a rough stone wall opening to a pool, a tree trunk and a timber-clad house with planted terraces

Circle of teak armchairs on irregular stone pavers set in grass, with a curved pool and apartment towers beyond

Teak armchairs with grey cushions on stepping stones in lawn, shaded by fern-like foliage with the pool and tall trees behind

Seen from the lawn, the rear facade is less a wall than a set of stacked horizontal bands: slatted timber soffits, white planter boxes and recessed glazing, each floor slightly offset from the one below. The result is a facade that is mostly shade and foliage. The building recedes, and the curved pool and lawn take the foreground.

The garden is not a single open field. Irregular stone pavers set into the grass mark out a circle of teak armchairs, stepping stones thread between beds, and an opening in a rough stone wall frames the pool, a tree trunk and the timber-clad house as one composition. These small moves give the 600 m² a sequence of places to stop, which keeps the open ground from feeling like an empty buffer between the house and the neighbouring apartment towers.

Round Columns, Cedar Soffits and the Covered Edge

Covered terrace with round white brick columns, timber ceiling and bar stools beside a lawn with stone stepping pads

Ground-floor terrace with timber lounge chairs and a round dining table beneath a planter-lined concrete band and slatted wood soffit

Covered terrace with slatted timber ceiling and round columns, wooden lounge chairs facing a lawn and banana plants in daylight

Tall palm beside the two-storey facade with white columns, cedar slat ceilings and planted ledges above a sunlit lawn

Round concrete column between stacked timber-clad balconies with white planter boxes of ferns, softened by leaves in the foreground

Corner detail of white brick walls, a thin concrete roof edge and cedar slat soffit above a sliding glass door

Living area opening through sliding glass to a garden, with a slatted timber ceiling, round column and curved velvet sofa in soft daylight

Slatted timber deck along a white brick wall with a billowing curtain, dining table and tall trees in afternoon sun

The real threshold between house and garden is the covered terrace that runs along the ground floor. Round columns, some of white brick and some of concrete, hold up a slatted timber ceiling that carries straight through the sliding glass into the living room. With the doors open, the ceiling is the only sign of where inside stops.

The material palette is limited: wood, concrete and brick. The detail at the corner shows how carefully they are kept apart. White brick walls rise to a thin concrete roof edge, and cedar slats sit under it as a separate, warmer layer. On the upper floors the same logic produces balconies lined with planters of ferns, so that the facade facing the garden gradually becomes part of the garden.

Courtyards and Light Wells as Private Gardens

Open-roof courtyard of white brick walls with tall palms, broad-leaf plants and a stone path leading to a doorway

White brick entry opening onto a stepping-stone path through palms and grasses toward a timber door beneath a skylight

Narrow passage with oak panelling and a built-in stone bench leading over a pebble floor toward a planted courtyard

Living room with a channeled tan sofa facing a large framed window onto a bamboo planted light well

Living area with a reclaimed wood ceiling, leather lounge chair and ottoman, and a square window framing a hedge

Because the house sits tight against one edge of the lot, the rooms on that side cannot look out at the main lawn. Felipe Hess Arquitetos solves this by cutting smaller gardens into the building itself. An open-roofed courtyard of white brick holds tall palms and broad-leaf plants, the entrance path runs on stepping stones through grasses, and a narrow oak-panelled passage with a stone bench and a pebble floor leads to another planted court.

Inside, these pockets do the work that the big garden does on the other side. The living room faces a framed light well planted with bamboo, and a square window frames a hedge rather than a street. This is how the brief that every room faces the garden is actually met: some rooms get the lawn, and the rest get a garden of their own.

An Interior of Oak, Reclaimed Timber and Whitewashed Brick

Living room with a white hearth, orange wood-framed armchairs, a low wooden table and a timber ceiling in soft daylight

Kitchen with oak-clad island, woven-seat stools, vertical timber cabinetry and a built-in oven beside frosted windows glowing with daylight

Narrow corridor with a reclaimed wood ceiling and a hanging woven sculpture lit by a glowing white wall slot

Corridor with a whitewashed brick wall holding a dark green stone sculpture, a carved relief panel opposite and a slatted timber ceiling overhead

Gallery room with a pivot door cracked open to a sliver of light across the terrazzo floor and a red crocheted hanging on the wall

Straight oak staircase with a leather-wrapped steel handrail rising toward a skylit slot and a small artwork on the wall

Narrow hallway with flush cream doors, an oak wall niche with a shelf, and two striped kilim runners on the wood floor

Bedroom with oak-paneled wall, checked rug and sheer curtain beside a sliding glass door opening to green foliage

The interiors, developed with Manuela Siffert, keep to the same restrained palette as the shell. Reclaimed wood ceilings, oak panelling and cabinetry, whitewashed brick and terrazzo floors make up most of the surfaces, and orange-framed armchairs, kilim runners and woven pieces add colour against them. The kitchen island is clad in oak, and frosted windows let in daylight without giving away the view.

The circulation spaces are where the house is at its most deliberate. A corridor with a reclaimed wood ceiling ends at a glowing slot in a white wall. A straight oak stair with a leather-wrapped handrail climbs toward a skylit opening. A pivot door, left slightly ajar, throws a line of light across the floor of the gallery room. These are small, carefully lit moments, and they give the deep plan some of the same changing light that the garden-facing rooms take for granted.

Upper Walkways and a Roof That Keeps Planting

Upper walkway lined with round brick columns, planters and vertical timber cladding, with treetops visible beyond in daylight

Upper-level room opening to a roof terrace of tall grasses, with a wood-framed glass door and cedar slat eave under cloud

White painted brick volume with a timber-framed window, a glass round table and potted trees on a rooftop terrace under cloudy sky

On the upper level, a walkway lined with round brick columns, planters and vertical timber cladding looks out over the treetops, which confirms that the preserved trees were treated as part of the design and not just tolerated. The roof does not stop the landscape either. A small white brick volume opens onto a roof terrace of tall grasses, which brings back as planting some of the ground the footprint took away.

Plans and Drawings

Ground floor plan drawing showing a four-car garage and service rooms beside a lawn with a kidney-shaped pool

Plan drawing of the main living level with open lounge and dining areas opening to a terrace, pool and scattered trees

Upper floor plan drawing showing a row of bedrooms along a narrow band above the garden and pool outline

Roof level plan drawing showing a small rooftop volume with a green perimeter, set above the lower floors and pool garden

Elevation drawing of the street facade with a long flat canopy, garage doors, stepped upper floors and two outlined trees

The plans make the strategy easy to read. The ground floor groups a four-car garage and the service rooms along one side, beside the lawn and the kidney-shaped pool. The main living level opens its lounge and dining areas onto the terrace and the garden. The bedrooms sit in a single narrow band on the upper floor, all facing the garden and the pool outline, and the roof level holds only a small volume with planting around it.

The street elevation shows the other side of the plan: a long flat canopy, garage doors and stepped upper floors, with two trees drawn in. The house gives the street a calm, horizontal front and keeps its openness for the garden side.

Why This Project Matters

Affluent residential neighbourhoods in São Paulo tend to fill their lots, with buildings pushed out to the setbacks and gardens reduced to strips. Jacarezinho II shows a different approach that is both simple and demanding: give up footprint, push the building to one edge and treat the remaining open ground as the main space of the house. Keeping the existing trees makes the point stronger. The house was arranged around what was already on the site.

What makes the idea work is its consistency. The courtyards, light wells, planted balconies and roof terrace mean that the commitment to the garden reaches rooms that could easily have been left facing a party wall. The palette of brick, timber and concrete is handled with discipline. If there is a lesson for architects working on similar lots, it is that a large garden is not something added to a house afterwards. It has to shape the section, the circulation and the plan from the start.

Jacarezinho II House by Felipe Hess Arquitetos (team: Felipe Hess, João Paulo Carrascoza, Débora Boniatti, Julia Vilanova), with interiors by Manuela Siffert. São Paulo, Brazil. Lot area approximately 1,000 m². Completed 2025. Photography by Fran Parente.

About the Studio

Felipe Hess Arquitetos

Official website of Felipe Hess Arquitetos, one of the studios behind this project.

felipehess.com.br

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