Casa Lua in Belo Horizonte organizes domestic life as a sequence of calibrated outlooks over the Serra do Curral and the city’s horizon. Four stacked levels act as urban belvederes, with a street-level glazed atrium setting up a measured arrival before the house steps down to social spaces that open to a deck and pool. An elevated upper block wrapped in a metallic brise-soleil rests on four branching concrete columns. This structural gesture clarifies the building’s stance on the hillside while modulating light, privacy, and long-range views, including the moonrise that punctuates the daily cycle.
Casa Lua Technical Information
- Architects: TETRO
- Location: Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil
- Gross Area: 455 m2 | 4,897 Sq. Ft.
- Completion Year: 2025
- Photographs: © Luisa Lage
The relationship with the view was a defining factor in the project’s conception, which organizes the house in four stacked levels, each one functioning as an urban belvedere.
– TETRO Architects
Site and Orientation: Belvedere on a Hillside
Set on a steep, south-east-facing site in Belo Horizonte, the house treats the slope not as an obstacle but as a spatial driver. Each level aligns to a distinct stratum of the hillside, framing the Serra do Curral and the city beyond while maintaining measured proximity to the ground. This sectional approach transforms topography into a viewing instrument, with the residence reading as a stack of calibrated platforms rather than a single volume cut into the terrain.
Orientation gives the project its daily rhythm. Morning light arrives obliquely, softened at upper levels by the metallic brise, while deeper views remain the constant focus across the plan. The layout acknowledges a recurring celestial event: the moon rising behind the mountains. By aligning openings and principal spaces to this trajectory, the design folds an external cycle into domestic routine, reinforcing the house’s role as a lived observatory.
Sectional Organization and Thresholds
Arrival occurs at street level through a glazed atrium that operates as a pause in a dense urban fabric. This transparent volume reveals the horizon immediately, establishing a release of space before the plan narrows into the vertical circulation core. The atrium connects directly to the elevated upper block, where the master suite and bedrooms are grouped for privacy. Two additional rooms on this level extend the family program while keeping the view as a shared orientation device.
One level below, the social floor brings living and kitchen spaces into direct conversation with the deck and pool. Large openings dissolve the boundary, enabling a continuous surface from interior to exterior and holding the view as the primary backdrop for daily activities. The lowest level consolidates service spaces and an office, more withdrawn yet still visually connected to the landscape. Across the stack, thresholds are articulated as changes in light, openness, and material density rather than hard separations.
Structural Strategy: Branching Columns and Elevated Mass
Four branching concrete columns support the upper mass, introducing a structural figure that both stabilizes the house on the slope and lightens its footprint. The bifurcating geometry diffuses loads to discrete ground points, reducing the presence of continuous walls and allowing the terrain and views to flow beneath and around the elevated volume. This reading of the columns as arboreal elements links the house to the hillside’s vertical rhythms without literal mimicry.
By concentrating support at key nodes, the structure becomes an active organizer of space. Clear spans open the social level to the exterior platform, while the elevated block assumes a calm, hovering presence above. Visual and spatial relationships layer vertically: the column field frames sightlines, the raised mass marks the domestic core, and exterior terraces extend occupation into the slope. Structure here is not a background technique but the primary agent that sets up the project’s belvedere condition.
Envelope and Light: Metallic Brise and Glazing
The upper block is wrapped in a metallic brise-soleil that reads as dense and monolithic from the street, yet operates internally as a porous filter. This second skin tempers solar gain, calibrates privacy in a close-knit neighborhood, and produces a patterned light that shifts through the day. The interplay between the brise and the internal glazing creates a layered envelope, where shadow and reflection add depth to otherwise compact rooms.
At the social level, expansive glazing aligns with outdoor platforms to maintain the continuity of the belvedere. Openings are positioned to sustain longer sightlines rather than increase transparency, and the brise above ensures upper rooms retain environmental control without sacrificing orientation to the horizon. Materially, the contrast between the textured concrete columns, the metallic veil, and clear glass provides legibility: weight and support below, filtered enclosure at the living quarters, and unobstructed apertures at the communal spaces.
About TETRO
TETRO is an architecture studio based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Founded in 2015, the firm is led by Carlos Maia, Débora Mendes, and Igor Macedo. TETRO’s architectural approach is defined by a synthesis between poetic spatial experiences and technical rigor, often focusing on topographical engagement, structural expressiveness, and light modulation to create designs that resonate with both landscape and inhabitant.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Principals: Carlos Maia, Débora Mendes, and Igor Macedo
- Contributors: Gregório Magno, Bianca Carvalho, Bruno Bontempo, Giovanna Giacomo, Luisa Lage, Carolina Amaral
- Structural engineers: MVE Estruturas
- MEP consultants:
- Hydraulic: Alexandre José Gonçalves
- Electric: Antonio Sergio de Carvalho (FASE ENGENHARIA E PROJETOS LTDA)
- Landscape designers: Nativa
- Client: Private
- Construction company: Real Construtora
- Other contributors:
- Lighting design: Gilza Carvalho
- Windows and Glazing: Vitarka Esquadrias
- Interiors: Ana Flávia Souza Silva
- Automation: Josimara Andrade
- Woodwork: Armários Nobre
- Wooden deck: Macal Madeiras
- Pools Installation: Tecnosolar
