Rio de Janeiro • Brazil
University of Miami School of Architecture

A case study of a house originally designed by Oscar Niemeyer, in Brazil, with collaborative landscapes by Roberto Burle Marx; the roof overhangs beyond the exterior walls; it creates shady terraces over the carport and along its longer axis. Niemeyer used curtain walls to provide an undisruptive view to the valley, mountains, and beyond. Two free-standing stonewalls act as a divider between the private and public space. The divider wall extends to the garden and links the interior and the exterior landscape -designed by Roberto Burle Marx. The garden sets the house in frame between its organic and rectilinear shape; one could say that it blurs the lines between cubist European modern architecture (artifice/fake) and modernism in Brazil (nature).