2025 Galleries
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2025 Galleries // 2025 Spark: Architecture // Block House
Block House
Winner - Platinum
Competition:
Spark: Architecture
Designer:
Marcio Kogan
Design Type:
Architecture; Residential ,
Company / Organization / School:
Studio MK27
Website:
http://https://mk27.com/
Team Members:
Marcio Kogan, Samanta Cafardo, Diana Radomysler & Pedro Ribeiro
Block House, in São Paulo, is part of Studio MK27’s series of urban residences. Built on a narrow lot characteristic of the city’s dense neighborhoods, the house unfolds longitudinally, responding with precision to the site’s proportions. On the ground floor, a linear volume spans the entire plot, housing service and support areas that open onto a lateral patio for natural light and cross-ventilation. In front of this prism, the social spaces form an open plaza where living, dining, and terrace areas connect directly to the front and rear gardens, creating fluid continuity between interior and exterior.
Above, an upper volume rests partly on the ground-floor block and partly on the side wall. Lifted by slender, Miesian-style metal columns, it creates a shaded piloti that shelters the social areas while offering privacy and solar protection. This upper block, which gives the house its name, is wrapped in a wooden skin crafted from solid repurposed industrial scrap, arranged like small bricks. Its porous surface filters light, promotes ventilation, and reinterprets the traditional mashrabiya through a contemporary Brazilian sensibility, casting geometric shadows that shift throughout the day.
Block House is more than an exploration of urban living — it is a synthesis of sensory sophistication.
