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An Architect’s Own Quirky Space for Art

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Artistic detailing like this grass stairway typifies the very quirky home of Architect Pedro Useche.  The Venezuelan-born architect had a hands-on start in architecture: he made furniture he loved but could not afford to buy.

An example of the furniture he wanted is this ornately carved candlestick holder inside – all of the furniture in his home, he designed himself.

Located in tropical and humid Sao Paolo in Brazil, his house weathers like an old house anywhere – with damp stucco walls growing moss.

Sited in the sophisticated Morumbi neighbourhood, it’s hilltop perch offers panoramas. But attention to detail keeps the focus on the house itself.

The result is a very large (1,000 square meters) house. In a big departure from the forbidding and noncommittal exterior shell, inside is a rather rambling and personal house with a lot of character.

A very unique floor of waste stone pieces looks like alligator skin. Together with the avocado green ceiling the effect is amusingly tropical.

Each space seems to tell another story yet the whole floor plan feels like a guided tour through the inhabitant’s lifestyle.

The amusing floor continues untill the interior art spaces are reached.

Some charmingly goofy cut-out metal stairs offer an intriguing glimpse of vegetation underneath, reminiscent of the grass stairway outside.

The stairs lead down into a double-height living room with plenty of space for the architect’s art collections.

More low windows survey vegetation from underneath a bookshelf in the library office.

Essentially, it is a home for art.

By contrast with all the amusing decor inside, the luscious garden creates a sense of peace and equilibrium outside. A sensible solar roof supplies guilt-free power to top it all off.