From the street, a concrete wall pigmented in situ by artist Luiza Gottschalk with pale pinks, blues, greens, and yellows hints at the palette inside the São Paulo home that her husband, architect Tito Ficarelli, designed for their family. “The colors of that wall are replicated all over the house,” says Tito, cofounder of local firm Arkitito. “It’s basically a palette of colors picked up from nature.”

A connection to nature was central to Tito’s design for the 3,500-square-foot home, where the couple live with their daughters, 11-year-old Nina and 7-year-old Lola, and their septuagenarian family friend, Mrs. Zelita, as well as the family’s Dobermans, Margarida and Charlotte. The trapezoidal house—the third home Tito has designed for his family—straddles the divide between the bustling Pinheiros neighborhood and a more secluded patch of the Vila Madalena area.

I met Tito on a hot day. We were seated around the long, rectangular dining table that anchors the heart of the house, where the open kitchen meets the living room under the roof’s downward slant. Sliding glass doors bookend the space. They open on the east end to a small entry patio with a barbecue pit and to the west provide direct sight lines to the terrace and garden below, as well as to a massive araucaria tree in the distance that towers above the densely vegetated skyline. “When we saw this tree outside, we decided to make it really stand out and emphasize this outlook on the city,” says Tito. “This house is where we disconnect from the world.”

“The house has forms—a square, a circle, a triangle—that communicate, almost like a kid’s game.”
—Tito Ficarelli, architect and resident

Toca House takes its name from the Portuguese word for “den” or “burrow.” Not unlike the crawl spaces animals build for themselves in nature, the home features strategically placed openings—skylights, clerestories, glass doors, windows—that let in natural light and frame the surrounding landscape.

The home’s layout fits together like a puzzle. Three bedrooms and two bathrooms are situated directly below the entry-level kitchen and living area, with what Tito describes as “not a hallway, not a room, really more of a gallery space” that runs the length of the private areas. Luiza designed the gallery’s granilite floors with colors and shapes that echo those of the concrete wall at the front of the residence, though here the forms are more figurative, depicting various flora and fauna. Sliding glass doors bordering the north- and west-facing sides of the gallery space open directly to the concrete patio and garden. Three metal stilts painted orange make the northwest end of the home look as though it’s levitating. Hammocks hang between them.

A metal spiral staircase pierces through the levels “like a corkscrew that goes from top to bottom and structures the whole house,” Tito says. From the gallery, the stairs pass through circular cutouts—which mirror the shape of skylights throughout the home—through the main level to Luiza’s lofted art studio, which spans the length of the house below the tall end of the roof’s pitch. The architect built a small music studio for himself—where he records with his rock band—just below Luiza’s art space, adjacent to the living room. Both Tito’s and Luiza’s creative spaces overlook the patio and have diagonal views to the curved terrace. Inside, a rectangular cut in the floor next to the stairs allows for direct communication between the main and lower levels. Outside, the same is possible from the terrace, which extends from the living area and overlooks the patio, which has a small, circular pool built into the concrete.

“It’s this idea of piling things up,” says Tito. “We built the house in layers, each with its own nature and material.” This diversity of materials helps delineate the structure’s puzzle pieces. A metal layer (painted bright orange to match the stilts) separates the lower concrete level from the upper structure, which is made of cross-laminated timber. The slanted roof and two sides of the house are clad in dark shingles. “It was important that the house is really made out of what it looks like, no ornaments at all,” says the architect.

“Inside and out, you see the house clearly in all its layers, its slices.”
—Tito Ficarelli, architect and resident

Though Tito tapped a wider palette for the Toca House than great Brazilian architects like modernist Oscar Niemeyer or “Paulist brutalist” Paulo Mendes da Rocha might have relied on, his design celebrates composition and texture in the vein of those Pritzker Prize winners. On the home’s main level, for example, green Brazilian marble floors extend across the kitchen and living area, complementing the earthy look of the wooden ceiling panels and built-ins. Soft-pink kitchen cabinetry and a stainless-steel island add subtle, playful contrast.

In that sense, though Toca House was completed in 2022, it feels rooted in São Paulo’s rich modernist and brutalist design history. “It’s a mix of classic and playful, like a tree house, where you come up from the roots,” Tito says. “It’s a designer’s house, but not too attached to any kind of aesthetic, discourse, or style.”

Project Credits:

Architect of Record: Arkitito / @arkitito

Builder/General Contractor: Domeng Engenharia

Structural Engineer: 3TX

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In São Paulo, an Architect’s Geometric Family Home Fits Together Like a Puzzle