JQY House in Juquei Turns a Beach Lot into a Two-Front Home

A 500-square-meter beach house by André Becker and Ricardo Karman occupies the exact footprint of a previous construction in Juquei, on Brazil's São Paulo coast, and completed in 2023. The architects' text describes a strategy built almost entirely around one condition: the lot faces the beach, which is naturally the focal point of the layout and ambiance.

The program distributes itself accordingly. The living room, dining room, veranda, pool, and two upper-floor suites all overlook the sea, positioned on a footprint that is subtly elevated above the beach level. Rebuilding within the old foundation lines allowed what the architects call a generous, sprawling, and airy layout that maximizes the sea breeze for thermal comfort.

The street side gets its own architectural event. An internal garden welcomes visitors coming from the street, featuring a reflecting pool and glass louvers that create what the architects describe as a pleasant microclimate throughout the ground floor. Wooden slats — biribas — run throughout the house, providing both shade and ventilation.

The dual orientation drives the section. The front volume facing the street rises a single story and carries a generous green roof oriented toward the mountains, complete with a reflecting pool and deck. This creates, according to the architects, an intimate outdoor space in contrast to the ground-floor living room and veranda facing the sea. The arrangement is highly functional for a house that is typically filled with family and friends, allowing parallel activities to happen comfortably for everyone.

On the beach side, the facade — the architects note that this type of lot essentially gives the house two fronts — features two solid side walls that support a thin roof slab. The result is deep, shaded, cantilevered terraces protecting the glazed living spaces from coastal sun.

The landscape design closes the gap between building and shore. A generous pool and beachside garden transition the house to the sand, keeping the building discretely integrated into the coastal landscape.

Ana Mello photographed the project. The house adds to a body of Brazilian coastal residential work where passive measures — cross-ventilation, slatted screens, deep terraces, and planted roofs — carry the climatic performance, a method that continues to define the country's beachfront architecture.