Isay Weinfeld's 111 House Lets Planting Climb Its Concrete Facade

A 280 sq m garden grows straight up the facade of 111 House, a new São Paulo residence by Isay Weinfeld that treats planting as architecture rather than decoration.

Weinfeld designed the house for a couple of contemporary art collectors and their two children. The brief called for a home that could display artworks while remaining an informal residence for meeting friends and experiencing daily life, "in a simple and unpretentious way," the architects explain.

The project pairs Weinfeld with landscape architect Rodrigo Oliveira, a specialist in naturalistic gardens informed by Japanese methodology and the asymmetric beauty of nature. Oliveira typically works towards "spontaneous-looking gardens that blend seamlessly into the surroundings," he said in a 2025 interview.

Weinfeld belongs to a generation of Brazilian architects who picked up where leading modernists such as Oscar Niemeyer left off, carrying the country's architecture into its contemporary chapter. His past work includes Geneses House, which won a Wallpaper* Design Award for Best Private House in 2014.

At 111 House, his signature language of clean lines, raw concrete and warm timber surfaces meets vegetation that overflows, softening boundaries and creating a facade the studio expects to change with time and the seasons. Planters sit within the fabric of the facade itself, so greenery and flowers take over vertically, moving up through the elevations on all four sides of the building rather than staying confined to the ground level and terraces.

The numbers frame the balance: 517 sq m of built space on an urban plot, against 280 sq m of garden. The house unfolds across four levels but keeps a relatively small footprint so the planting around it can thrive. Overhangs, pergolas and the vegetation itself act as brise-soleil, supporting comfortable living year-round.

Oliveira's planting strategy defies the stereotype of the lush Brazilian tropical garden. He selected species that thrive across a range of climatic conditions and better reflect the territory's current and future needs as weather patterns shift.

"Rather than resorting to a tropical forest of broad leaves and dense volumes, often associated with the Brazilian landscape, the house receives cold-climate species, small foliage, flowers and great botanical diversity," the studio writes. "These are wind-resistant plants, easier to maintain and capable of ageing well, composing a delicate garden without losing presence."

The result reads from a distance like a leafy fragment of urban design, a park-like presence that resolves, on approach, into a family home wrapped in living material. As climate considerations push landscape choices toward resilient, low-maintenance species, 111 House offers a model for how Brazilian residential architecture can stay verdant without defaulting to the tropical idiom.