Fidalga Penthouse by Gurgel D’Alfonso Arquitetura
Fidalga Penthouse sits in São Paulo, Brazil, where Gurgel D’Alfonso Arquitetura turns a duplex apartment into a lively home for a young family tied to food and hosting. The project rewrites the plan around a working kitchen fit for filming and everyday meals, then carries a tactile mix of materials through living areas and up to quieter rooms under a gabled roof. It feels purposeful and warm.
Late sun slips across terracotta underfoot and flashes on steel. A deep balcony and high clerestories pull light into the duplex, where cooking and conversation run together.
This apartment in Vila Madalena is reworked by Gurgel D’Alfonso Arquitetura as a home that doubles as a culinary studio and a daily refuge. The plan centers on a kitchen that handles filming, prep, and meals with children, then widens into social rooms and a wind-cooled terrace. Material choices do the heavy lifting, setting a clear rhythm from entry to the rooms above.
Build The Core
The kitchen becomes a single, continuous axis that starts with a self-supporting stainless steel counter and runs through a prep span to a solid wood table. Walls come down and storage consolidates, so cooking, shooting, and dining align without friction. Independent steel modules carry accessories and tasks, a nod to professional rigs, while a Vitória Régia quartzite surface anchors drawers to the working side. The mix is deliberate and durable.
Metal And Stone
Brass panels wrap a custom cabinet wall that hides appliances and deeper storage, bouncing daylight across the room. The reflective sheen softens near the wood table and the quartzite ledge, creating a tuned range of temperatures for dough, searing, and plating. A secondary kitchen sits nearby with another stainless counter and a washing zone next to the laundry, keeping the main run clear. It works hard and stays composed.
Floor, Light, Air
Terracotta ceramic tile runs through the social level and out to the balcony, tying movement and mood with a steady, warm tone. Exposed spotlights track the slab and linear pendants mark the counter, trimming the need for dropped ceilings while keeping focus on task lines. Daylight pours through large windows and concrete breeze blocks, cutting electric use during the day and pushing fresh air across the rooms (the shadows shift hour by hour). The result is bright but grounded.
Living With Texture
In the living room, a masonry bookshelf bends to trace an exposed air duct, folding fixed structure with freestanding Sucupira wood furniture below. That curve turns infrastructure into a quiet diagram and leaves a tidy field for books, objects, and soft light. Window frames and slatted screens in the same wood filter glare and throw striped patterns onto the floor and table. The effect is calm and legible.
Objects In Use
Heirlooms sit comfortably with Brazilian pieces: a family dining table upgraded by restored Sergio Rodrigues chairs, an Elle armchair by Luisa Attab, and a Forma side table by Maximiliano Crovato. On the shelf, a Maija lamp from Santa & Cole adds a low glow for evenings. Material continuity matters more than rarity, so every surface that meets a hand reads consistent. The room feels lived in, not staged.
Balcony To Roof
The balcony keeps the same floor tile as the interior and extends daily routines outside with a long wood bench and planted edges. It is simple. Upstairs, bedrooms and a home office sit under the exposed gabled roof, where the structure lifts the ceiling and sets a protective frame. The office takes a light blue epoxy floor that picks up the sky through the windows and steadies the workday.
Joinery As System
A custom Sucupira desk shapes the office corner, and a companion station fuses carpentry with metalwork for contrast and durability. In the primary suite, a central built-in of Virolinha plywood lands the room with bed, headboards, closet, and a small lounge organized as one modular volume. The unit is produced off-site in parts and installed early, tightening schedule and finish while keeping wiring and connections discreet. A lowered, carpeted base doubles as a step and a technical floor with neat service niches.
Wet Room, Warm Tone
The primary bathroom wraps terracotta-toned ceramic around an onyx naranja counter, then carries the same tone across a monolithic floor and a built-in concrete soaking tub. Edges break to soft curves and hold light without glare. The original roof slope remains legible overhead, lit by daylight that settles into corners and onto the water line. It reads as a compact retreat with honest materials.
Steps return to clay tile and lead past brass, stone, and wood that have learned to share the load. Evening light catches the steel counter and the slatted screens, then slides out to the bench-lined balcony. The home holds work and meals with care, and the craft of each surface gives daily life a precise, comfortable rhythm.
Photography by Ricardo Faiani
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