Architecture is viewed as a necessity for establishing a connection between humans and the surrounding world. Before serving as a shelter, it is a way of creating a place—a space that can guide the body, organize experience, and make visible relationships often hidden in daily life. It is from this understanding that the Mirante de São Jorge project arose.
Located in Chapada dos Veadeiros, near the National Park, in one of the most ecologically significant areas of the Brazilian Cerrado, the project is based on recognizing an existing place in collective memory. The hilltop traditionally served as a gathering spot to contemplate the sunset over the mountain horizon. The project acknowledges this feature and creates conditions for a more intense experience of this experience.
The realization of the project is built on the principle of minimal landscape alteration: it occupies an existing clearing, preserving local vegetation and avoiding earthworks. The elevated structure follows the natural topography using pile foundations, allowing the area to maintain its original form, drainage processes, and vegetation cover.
Mirante is organized as a continuous circular ribbon eight meters wide and fifty-seven meters in total diameter, which outlines a large central empty space (1256 m²). This geometry does not aim to assert an isolated object in the landscape, but rather to create a place. The circular shape is inspired by geometric patterns that have historically organized spaces for meetings, contemplation, and orientation. It represents not just a symbol, but a structure capable of bringing people closer to each other and restoring their connection to the rhythms of nature. In an era of acceleration and dispersion, the project offers the opposite experience: presence and attention.
The central void is the true heart of the project. Here, the sky becomes a covering, the flow of time becomes visible, and the daily cycle of the sun takes on central importance. During sunset, visitors share the same horizon; at night, the space hosts gatherings around a fire. The architecture does not dictate these events, but merely provides the conditions for them to occur.
The curved wooden roof provides shelter, comfort, and human scale without disrupting the continuity between interior and exterior. Existing trees naturally pass through the architecture, dissolving the boundaries between the built environment and the territory. Vegetation ceases to be a decorative element and becomes an integral part of the spatial experience.
In Chapada dos Veadeiros—an area recognized as the cradle of waters and one of the country's most important ecological heritages—this experience takes on an even deeper meaning. The project understands that preserving the landscape depends on protecting its ecosystems, but also on building cultural and emotional connections between people and the place. In addition to offering eco-tourism infrastructure for visitors, Mirante seeks to strengthen this connection, viewing architecture as a tool capable of bringing people closer to the territory and promoting its preservation.
Architecture has the power to create landscapes, but more sophisticated architecture allows that landscape to endure. Upon arriving at the site, the terrain showed signs of disuse; however, the space itself already seemed complete. The intention of the project was not to introduce new elements, but rather to make the construction integrate discreetly into the existing environment, spreading out instead of rising up and receding instead of attracting attention, ensuring that nature remained the main element of the place.
The choice of a single-story building went beyond a mere formal decision; it represented a stance toward the ground. The creators' goal was for visitors to remember the place first, and not the building itself.
The project was presented on ArchDaily in Portuguese, with a dated record from August 16, 2026, and can be accessed via the provided link.
One of the owners of Casa Sombras explains that inspiration comes from the heavens, resides there, and descends into the workshop, taking shape. This poetic metaphor reflects the organization of the residential house, which transforms a slope over 15 meters high into a sequence of places for contemplation, relaxation, and creativity.
Located in Cerro del Vigia, on one of the highest hills of Zihuatanejo, the house overlooks the bay and the Pacific Ocean. The project was conceived as a permanent residence for a creative couple who, after visiting various cities in Mexico, chose Zihuatanejo to establish their permanent home.
The house program included three bedrooms, an art studio, reading and audiovisual leisure areas, as well as an extensive common area organized around the kitchen. The owners aimed for architecture with clean lines and restrained composition, viewing the building as an author's work where every element served a specific purpose.
The steep gradient of the terrain, with a difference of more than 15 meters between the access road and the lower street, defined the structure of the project. The solution was to distribute functional zones across three levels so that the house was not perceived as a massive structure of that height. From the street, the facade is predominantly solid, ensuring privacy and presenting a single-level composition. The upper volume seems to rest upon the rest of the structure, like an object placed on a pedestal, while most of the living space slopes down toward the landscape.
Passing through the closed facade, the space suddenly opens up to the bay. The living room, dining room, and kitchen form a continuous environment that extends to the terrace and infinity pool, making the transition between interior, exterior, and horizon almost imperceptible.
From this level, a staircase leads to the upper volume, which houses the master bedroom, library, and TV lounge; another staircase descends to the guest bedrooms and art studio. The house is understood as a body with a mind and heart: relaxation and contemplation are concentrated above, and creativity below.
The name Casa Sombras does not come from dark shades, but from the need to find shelter from the intense climate of Zihuatanejo. Setbacks between volumes, deep recesses, covered passages, and perimeter flowerbeds create shade, filter solar radiation, and protect privacy without disrupting the connection to the landscape.
Materiality enhances the restrained character of the project through a palette of white, gray, black, and natural tones. Cladding made of paving stones retains its original color without pigment addition and combines with gray marble, clay brick, parota wood, and local aggregates. River pebbles, individually placed at the bottom of the pool, continue this connection with the environment. Considering the seismic activity of the region, the construction utilizes reinforced load-bearing walls and concrete structural elements.
Casa Sombras strives not to dominate the environment. Its height respects neighboring views, its massing follows the slope, and its palette allows vegetation, the bay, and light to be the true protagonists. After moving in, the house found its meaning in the daily experience of its owners: 'We feel like we belong here.'
In an era characterized by housing instability, social fragmentation, and ecological urgency, the book 'Collective Living and the Architectural Imaginary' analyzes how architects have rethought and can continue to rethink ways of cohabiting.
Tracing the history of collective housing projects—from early 20th-century experiments to contemporary proposals that challenge dominant market paradigms—the publication presents sixty projects from around the world. These projects have been reworked by the authors and structured into ten different approaches to residential design.
By uniting the past and the future, built forms and experimental sketches, the work prompts readers to view housing not merely as shelter, but as a critical foundation for rethinking domestic life, civic identity, and urban existence.
This volume invites architects, urban planners, and researchers to embrace collective living as a key platform for designing the modern city and re-examining the conditions of shared habitation.
