Memola Estúdio Layers a Young Family's Memories into a Four-Level Concrete House in São Paulo

Cinco House is a renovation, and it does not pretend otherwise. Memola Estúdio, led by Veronica Molina with Amanda Sarak and Giovana Almice, took on a 450 m² unit inside a low-density residential condominium in central São Paulo. The house sits on tree-lined streets, and one source credits its original architecture to Studio MK27. The angular concrete shell stays. What changes is almost everything you would touch, sit on or look at. The commission arrived while the clients' lives were shifting, and their first daughter was born during the design process. The brief followed from that: a home that could keep adjusting as the family did.

The interesting part is the attitude. São Paulo's high end has spent years refining a hyper-minimal luxury look of pale stone, hidden storage and nothing on the walls. Memola goes the other way and treats the interior as what Friedensreich Hundertwasser called a person's skin: a layer that grows out of the body and carries its history. That could easily turn into decorating with a manifesto attached. It mostly doesn't, because the architects respect the rationalist volume and put the personality into surfaces, objects and a few precise technical details.

A Ground Floor That Leans Toward the Garden

The social floor faces the garden, and the plan follows that orientation. Sheer curtains soften the glazing without closing it off, so the pink garden wall, the planting and the small pool read almost as part of the room. The living area is open. An island sofa sits in the middle and divides conversation from the home theater, so the space doesn't need walls to sort itself out.

The palette is warm and deliberately mixed. Herringbone timber, an oval marble dining table, rust linen upholstery and floral armchairs share a room that a minimalist would have reduced to two materials. It holds together because the light is generous and the furniture is low, which keeps sightlines to the garden open. Percival Lafer and Sergio Rodrigues pieces sit next to contemporary furniture and family objects. The result reads less like a styled showroom and more like a collection that is still growing.

The Stair as the House's Spine

Four levels are stacked around a central vertical core, and the stair ties them together visually. Memola gives the stair a timber handrail and looped metal balusters. It is a slightly Parisian gesture, and the wood-paneled circulation core repeats it. In a concrete house this refers more to an apartment on a boulevard than to Brazilian modernism, and that tension seems intended.

The hallway shows how the core works day to day. Walnut veneer cabinetry absorbs storage, artwork hangs along the route, and the corridor ends in a view of sunlit planting. Moving between floors becomes a short walk through the family's things, not just a trip between rooms.

Brick, Fire and Wiring You Can See

Painted brick runs through these rooms. It brings a handmade texture that the original concrete never had, and it takes raking light especially well. The wood stove sits on a raised plinth by the curtains, and a mid-height concrete shelf holds the audiovisual equipment. Fire and screen share one wall, an honest picture of how most families actually spend an evening.

The best detail here is also the smallest. Lighting conduits stay exposed, but they hang roughly 5 cm off the slab and walls on slender steel cables. At the edges they follow curves prototyped to match the ceiling profile. Concealing services is the luxury default. Showing them carefully is harder, and it suits the house's argument that nothing needs to be hidden to be refined.

Two Kitchens, One Indoors and One Under the Sky

The service areas share the ground floor with the living spaces and look onto the same garden. The galley kitchen pairs timber cabinetry with a brick floor and frames a slender tree against the pink courtyard wall. A small table at the window means meals don't always have to migrate to the formal dining room.

Outside, an outdoor kitchen with an illustrated tile backsplash and red cabinet doors sits on stepping stones set into grass. With the terracotta terrace and its timber lounger, it extends the house into the garden as a second living space. In São Paulo's climate, that is a practical use of the plot, not an indulgence.

Collections, Books and an Office Won from a Terrace

Shelving does a lot of work in this house. Records in brass bins, stacked books, sculptures and a bar tray turn storage into a portrait of the owners. A minimalist interior would treat this as clutter to edit out. Here it is the content the architecture exists to hold.

On the top level, Memola converted a partly open terrace into a home office. A glazed partition separates it while keeping it visually connected, and teak shelving, a parquetry desk and a leather chair give it the calm of a private library. This is the brief at work: as the family's needs changed, a room that barely existed became one they needed.

Bedrooms That Expect a Child

The first upper level holds a TV room and two bedrooms, and the primary suite sits above. The private rooms are where Memola is most playful: arched upholstered headboards, checked cushions, a red dashed border running around a linen wall, and timber-board ceilings that lower the sense of scale. The details are graphic without becoming childish.

The nursery corner, with a rattan crib under a white canopy and an embroidered wall hanging, is the clearest evidence of the project's timeline. The daughter arrived during design, and the house took her in without a second renovation.

Bathrooms Built from Tile and Color

Instead of uniform slabs of stone, the wet rooms use tile with intent. The powder room has pink wainscot, an oval timber mirror and a pedestal sink. The smaller bathroom sits behind sliding timber doors on a checkered floor. In the main bathroom, cream glazed tile, a marble basin on a timber vanity and a freestanding tub face the garden.

Small elements carry the character: a folding arched mirror cabinet, a globe sconce, dried flowers on the basin. These are inexpensive moves compared with bespoke stone, and they do more to make the rooms feel lived in.

Plans and Drawings

The plans make the vertical logic clear. The entry and technical spaces sit on the lower-ground level, reached from the condominium's shared garage. Above it, the ground floor opens to the garden and pool. The upper floors hold the TV room and bedrooms, then the primary suite and the converted office. The stair core stays fixed through all four levels, which explains why Memola could rework so much without disturbing the original configuration.

Why This Project Matters

Cinco House argues that a renovation can be generous without being destructive. Memola keeps the rationalist shell and its spatial order, then puts the family's identity into a layer that is easier to change later: brick finishes, tile, timber, furniture and art. That is a useful model for a city full of capable modernist houses whose second owners want warmth more than a new building.

It also pushes back, quietly, on the minimalist consensus in São Paulo's upper-end residential work. The exposed conduits on their steel cables show that refinement can come from careful exposure rather than concealment. The converted terrace and the nursery show that a house can be designed for change rather than for the photograph. You may not want every pattern in this house, but you will remember who lives there.

Cinco House by Memola Estúdio (lead architect Veronica Molina; design team Amanda Sarak and Giovana Almice), São Paulo, Brazil. Area: 450 m². Completed: 2025. Photography: Fran Parente.

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