PROJECT PARTNER(S)
Landscape architect: Fernando Chacel
Client: private owner.

LOCATION
At the entrance of the Buzios peninsula, 176km north of Rio de Janeiro.

DESCRIPTION
On more than half of the total surface, the area features a large fairly preserved piece of protected local ecosystem called restinga. The client called Chacel to design the housing development after 10 years trying to get the permit for a more than 500 houses development that the municipality wouldn't let him build.
Chacel changed the approach (previous design of geometric streets and rectangular narrow parcels) and suggested to reduce the number of parcels, use a more geometric design, create an artifical lake on the highly degraded zone by digging a little to find the underground water, and transplant any inconvenient tree that would be otherwise cut to built the houses into the degraded area.
At the end of the project, we have a highly valorized area, restoration of the degraded area by transplanting all the removed trees, a very scenic place around the lake and beautiful green parcels inside the forest, separated from each other by 6 a meters large natural fence which is the dense restinga forest.

PHOTOS AND DRAWINGS




LESSONS LEARNED
- Highly valorized site, with net gain in landscape quality, restoration of natural local ecosystem
- Low maintenance site due to exclusive use of local ecosystem. No need to water the green areas after the adaptation phase of the transplant.
- New design paradigm for Brazil, based on carefully studying the site and identifying its critical areas and potential, respecting local characteristics and relying on them.
- In practice, on the few parcels that have already been ocupied, we could see that neither the owner nor his architect got the idea of the whole new concept and build huge houses ocupying almost the whole land area, letting a thin strip of grass around the house, and locating the house inside the parcel without considering the neighboor parcel.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
see the comercial website of this housing development here.