LAF Residence by Patricia Martinez Architecture
LAF Residence is a house in Ibiúna, Brazil, designed by Patricia Martinez Architecture for a family of four on the edge of a reservoir. Completed in 2024, the project works with a sloping site to separate open living areas from more private bedrooms above. Its material palette draws on the clients’ Bahian roots, using wood, glass, and textured surfaces to connect daily life with memory and landscape.
About LAF Residence
Located in a condominium on the edge of a reservoir in Ibiúna, in the interior of São Paulo, LAF Residence by Patricia Martinez Architecture balances generous living areas with more intimate places for rest. The house responds to the particular conditions of the site and to the identity of its residents, a Bahian family made up of a couple and their two young children.
The architecture draws on the family’s cultural roots, with references that appear in the selection of materials and textures. Basketry motifs and traces of African-influenced naïve forms are especially visible in the composition of the upper volume, where the bedrooms are placed, reinforcing the residents’ emotional ties and memories.
The sloping lot, together with the presence of the reservoir ahead, naturally shapes the layout of the house, which settles into the preserved landscape around it. Laminated and woven wood forms part of the structure, bringing visual lightness and helping improve thermal comfort throughout the interiors.
The residence is organized across two clearly defined floors. On the ground level, masonry walls and large glass panels enclose the social areas, including the living room, kitchen, and service spaces. Above, the upper floor is more inward-looking and reserved, wrapped in wood-finished aluminum slats and dedicated to the family’s private rooms.
LAF Residence finds a measured balance between openness and privacy, as well as between cultural memory and contemporary construction. The result is a home that responds to both its natural setting and the everyday life of the people who live there.
Photography by Salvador Cordaro
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