Guaecá House is a three-level beachfront home in São Sebastião, Brazil, combining concrete foundations with a prefabricated glued laminated timber (glulam) upper structure for precision and low-waste assembly.
It features custom rain-screen window frames, movable wooden brise-soleils, and a photovoltaic system with battery storage, making the house energy self-sufficient and environmentally efficient.
The concept of Guaecá House is to create two independent homes—a family beach retreat and a rental unit—within a single, unified architectural volume. The design uses the site’s natural slope and dual street access to discreetly separate the programs while maintaining a coherent external expression.
Rather than isolating the house from its surroundings, the project embraces the landscape: the garden blends seamlessly with the protected maritime forest and stretches to the beach, erasing boundaries between built and natural environments. Prefabricated glulam construction, layered shading systems, and open social spaces reinforce this integration, resulting in a light, efficient, and contextually sensitive dwelling.
