They Call It the Joy House—and It Lives Up to Its Name

“A lot of renovations today have so much white and gray, and we wanted to run away from that,” says São Paulo native Joyce Prestes. “We really wanted color.”
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When São Paulo natives Nicholas Beggs and Joyce Prestes made an offer on a somewhat run-down and narrow house near the city’s financial district, they had no hesitations about their choice. Its location was ideal—on a quiet street in Vila Madalena, an artsy residential enclave—and its 1,000-square-foot backyard was larger than any they’d seen in the area. They had no hesitation about their next steps either, which involved bringing on Arkitito, an award-winning local architecture firm, to transform the property into their ideal home.

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