Biribinhas

Located on the lush Iporanga beach, Biribinhas House explores the soft boundaries between interior and exterior, built form and nature. The ground floor is open and transparent, defined by a light glass enclosure that gathers living areas, verandas, and spaces for slow living. Rather than closing, the glass expands the view, reflecting the surrounding greenery. A single opaque structure concentrates the kitchen and service areas, maintaining privacy and function within the open plan.

Above, a long upper volume seems to hover over the ground floor. The contrast between its apparent weight and the lightness below creates a subtle sense of balance — a gravitational tension. Despite its length, the upper floor is conceived as a beach cabin: a generous veranda shaded by a biribinha roof, made of fine twigs that draw delicate shadows across the wooden mashrabiyas.

These mashrabiyas form an intermediate filter between light and air, modulating transparency and temperature throughout the day. When opened, they allow the breeze to cross the house, turning the upper level as light and fluid as the one below.

Interiors unfold in soft, neutral tones — variations of beige that shift between sun-warmed and pale. The pebble floor adds a tactile depth to the house, its textured surface connecting the interior to the grass and the sand beyond.

Biribinhas House captures a dialogue of opposites: lightness and gravity, shadow and brightness, openness and shelter. It is an architecture that invites the elements in — calm, porous, and quietly attuned to the rhythm of the sea.