MSR Apartment by Mauricio Rebello – MRG Architecture
MSR Apartment sits in Rio de janeiro, Brazil, where Mauricio Rebello – MRG Architecture reshapes a 150m2 holiday home around view, light, and tactility. The brief called for a social core that folds kitchen and living together while framing the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon. What emerges is a warm, refined interior with exposed structure and Tauari wood that turns daily rituals toward the water.
Morning reaches the glazing and runs across pale floors. From the first step inside, sightlines carry to the lagoon while materials steady the eye in calm tones.
This is a 150m2 apartment in Rio’s South Zone, reimagined by Mauricio Rebello – MRG Architecture as an open holiday home. The effort concentrates on a cohesive interior palette: exposed concrete set against Tauari wood, light joinery, and neutral textiles that draw daylight forward. Plan moves support the mood, but the finishes lead.
Balance Warmth
Tauari wall panels form a continuous backdrop that threads living, dining, and circulation together. Their warmth counters the raw concrete of stripped columns and beams, creating a taut dialogue between rough structure and refined carpentry that frames daily use without clutter. White linen on walls and curtains heightens brightness, and muted rugs and upholstery absorb glare.
Expose Structure
Concrete stays honest. The revealed columns and beams punctuate the perimeter and lend scale, their gray tone aligning with the lagoon’s palette outside while sharpening the reading of wood and joinery. A single flooring material runs through the social rooms, reading as one plane that lengthens views and keeps circulation legible.
Stage the View
An L-shaped sofa sits low, encouraging conversation and quiet looking. The back height preserves cross-room openness, so the dining area and lounge share the same horizon line to the water across the glazed façade. Slim pendants hover over the table, chosen to avoid blocking the panorama, while translucent tempered-laminated glass at the window line secures safety without weight.
Open Kitchen, Social
A white-laminate island with an integrated cooktop anchors cooking and company. From here, the cook faces the landscape and the living room, keeping conversation easy and the ritual of meals part of the room. Marble-pattern porcelain climbs the backsplash for a crisp, durable surface, and the continuous floor ties preparation and dining into a clear sequence.
Soft Corners, Subtle Moves
A sweeping curved wall eases the junction between social zones. That curve gently opens peripheral views toward the outdoors and reduces visual noise where functions meet, adding a tactile cue to the circulation path. Nearby, the powder room hides behind vertical wood panels; inside, slender vertical tiles wrap rounded edges at the vanity for a neat finish.
Quiet Suite
The primary bedroom grows by borrowing from the guest room. A black aluminum sliding door with fluted glass links the bath to the sleeping area, letting light sift through while maintaining privacy during evening routines. A custom headboard folds in upper shelving with soft LED illumination, and the ensuite sets twin white-quartz vanities opposite a frosted-glass shower.
Light drifts across wood grain and concrete pores through the day. Materials carry the tone—calm, welcoming, and pared back—so the view keeps the lead without competition. A measured refuge, made for unwinding between city and water.
Photography courtesy of Mauricio Rebello – MRG Architecture
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