Photomaton Apartment
The Photomaton Apartment is located in an elevated position, surrounded by trees, feeling the presence of the sea 300 meters away. The light is intense and the house shapes itself from that. The walls were designed to not reflect the light in a glaring way; on the contrary, they receive it, allowing for the relationship with the exterior to be direct and not mediated by filters.
The architect João Carmo Simões, with his background in photography, is used to explore these themes intensively. In his book Civitas São Paulo the way he captures the shadows and the light reveals an intense atmosphere of the buildings of Oscar Niemeyer, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Villa Nova Artigas, Lina Bo Bardi among others. This obsession drove him also to found the international publisher, Monade (monadebooks.com), working closely with legendary modern architects such as Álvaro Siza or Paulo Mendes da Rocha.
The house opens up to the landscape along its longitudinal axis. Two pre-existing structural walls in concrete go through the space and mark the design of the project. The living room and kitchen extend on to the same balcony facing south. The passage through the wall that separates them is dematerialised by mirrored limits, which unifies the space. The bedrooms feature new windows that open on to the landscape, they are the result of the boosted reflection of the materials used. The light passes over and goes through the materials softly.
The spaces reflect themselves, creating an atmosphere that accompanies and adapts to the changes as the days go by. It gently receives and shows the day light variation as a photographic camera.
