Fernanda Marques Loft 24-7 library

Outside and inside slide seamlessly together in this lovely little loft built of thick wooden beams, textured limestone floors and rough stone walls, all tied together by thin and unobtrusive steel members and spanned, when necessary, with crystal clear glass.

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Fernanda Marques Loft 24-7 living room

Designer Fernanda Marques’ core idea involved tying together a classic country villa with the rigorous Modernism of masters like Mies van der Rohe, weaving a series of boxy rectangular forms into their environment on the outskirts of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Fernanda Marques Loft 24-7 patio

Wooden browns are a recurring theme, from wall-wide bookcases to smaller shelves, side tables, sofas, sheets,  blankets and cushions, both within and without the thick-walled central library space.

A heavy stone table, built-in niches, cabinets and bookcases also blur the boundary between furniture and architecture, projecting into and out of walls and adding a rich layer of variegated materials to the already-organic interior design.

Fernanda Marques Loft 24-7 bart
Fernanda Marques Loft 24-7 outdoor area

From Architizer:

“After her resounding success of her in Casa Cor’s 2008 edition, Fernanda Marques now presents her 2009 version of her Loft 24/7. This time, in the form of a spacious bungalow, of about 250m², where nature plays much more than a mere supporting role: one just has to note the intense use of daylight. The use of materials in their rough state. Its total openness to the outside.”

“‘“Being inside feeling like one is outside. I believe that to be a key issue in understanding the interior design being produced today. In times when environmental awareness is growing, and, of course, also the desire to be close to nature’, explains the architect, who places her design somewhere in between a country villa and a modernist home designed by one of her masters, German architect Mies van der Rohe.”

“Combined with rough stone walls and limestone floors, steel and glass are not present just by chance. Altogether, the house is 180m², linked by a wooden deck which projects the house out beyond its internal boundaries. A kind of interface between the interior and the outer environment, glazed walls and ceilings ensure spatial continuity: one of the hallmarks of Fernanda Marques’s designs.”