PALM TREES GARDEN
São Paulo, Brazil
Feeling coziness and stillness is what we look for in an urban garden. We often seek comfort not only in the house, which fulfills specific functions, but in the garden, in the simple act of being surrounded by it, or in contemplating it.
This São Paulo house on a corner of a residential neighborhood, designed by Jacobsen Architecture, is located 1.20 m above street level.
The L-shaped house on a triangular plot and its relationship with the height of the facade and the front wall, very close in some points, left a small and constrained space for the garden. This condition suggested that the vegetation should be considered in its height, volume and colors to somehow accommodate the dimensions that could be uncomfortable in the external space. It wasn't about closing off neighbors, but about disguising boundaries by creating a welcome depth to the garden.
The external floor and the pool initially proposed by the architecture, dividing the garden in two, were reduced and accommodated, making the scale of the garden more friendly. The temptation to create a triangular pool, in this case, only reinforced the difficulty of the terrain. The square and smaller pool integrated into the garden leaving space for the vegetation to show volume, licking its sharp edges and at the same time removing the sensation of water trapped between walls.
The vertical and narrow closure provided by Ptychosperma macarthurii palm trees softens the height of the house in relation to the street and gives privacy to the second floor, harmonizing with the existing palm trees and coexisting with the foliage that bleeds the water's edges.
The huge and beautiful seafortia palm trees (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana) already on the land give scale to the house and give the house and garden a more mature existence. It's an asset that they were there, not a problem. Some changes were necessary in the architectural project to preserve them while respecting the palm trees' insertion levels in the ground. From this new design, I created pleasant and unexpected new walkways: an access from the garden to the gym, on one side, and another to the service area, on the other side, passing through the fruit trees that were planted in front of the lunchroom.
As enormes e belas palmeiras seafortia (Archontophoenix cunninghamiana) existentes no terreno dão escala à casa e conferem à casa e ao jardim uma existência mais madura. É um trunfo que estivessem ali, não um problema. Algumas alterações foram necessárias no projeto de arquitetura para preservá-las respeitando as cotas de inserção das palmeiras no solo. A partir desse novo desenho, criei agradáveis e inesperados novos passeios: um acesso do jardim para a academia, de um lado, e mais um para a área de serviço, de outro lado, passando pelas árvores frutífera que foram plantadas em frente à sala de almoço.
All areas of the house, living room, dining room, terrace, gourmet space, lunchroom and kitchen face this 200 m² space, so that, in a way, some areas of the garden are inside the house. It is a contemplative and necessary garden, almost a continuation of the internal spaces, a garden that can be seen all at once.
It is important to note that the choice of vegetation as well as the shape and size of the pool can drastically change the perception of a space, especially on a triangular plot of these measurements.
Project and execution 2017 - 2020
Intervention area 400 m²
