Welcome to our gallery focusing on the Toy House by Pascali Semerdjian Architects.
Built in beautifully sunny São Paulo, Brazil, this concrete and steel structured home is an open design revelation.
The Toy House was designed as a huge play place for a growing family, supplementing the main home with a space for play and event hosting.
The exterior floor, made of basalt stone, meets the interior Levantina flooring in a wide open design that blurs the line between indoors and out. The exceedingly modern construction also folds in metal shelving, stainless steel drains, Corian countertops, and concrete vertical brises.
There’s a unique “LEGO” wall feature made of drywall that makes an immediate impression on any visitor.
Covering an ample 247 square meters, the Toy House can be opened up almost entirely to the outdoors, making for a truly playful and versatile space. Bright whites and splashes of color from across the rainbow inform the view from every angle.
The discreet entrance opens up toward a staircase, allowing visitors to choose from three different levels.
The lower floor is an expansive room for video games and movie sessions, with an integrated kitchen for cooking and dining. Here the architecture is most minimal, leaving space for play and remaining easily cleaned. Sliding doors on both sides of this space connect to the outdoors, while a large slide integrated beneath the staircase connects to the back of the house.
The upper floor is basically a capsule in a metal structure, built to allow assembly in different configurations. To help aid the flexibility of this space for various needs, sun blinds and shutters are built into the metal frame itself, raising and lowering, opening and closing via remote control.
Thus, the space can expand to become larger or smaller, isolated or open, depending on the situation at hand. It can also be easily dismantled and moved, if the need arises in the future.
A tower gate near the home was converted into an observation tower, connecting to the house by a red rope bridge that passes over the garden. This makes the landscape appear as a fun jungle setting.
Finally, special Brazilian graffiti artwork decorates the wall of the space, along with other artworks from Anish Kappor, Keith Haring, and Os Gemeos. This playful sense of art is central to the look of the project.
Photography: Ricardo Bassetti
The massive, open plan center of the lower level is this vast play area, replete with geometric blocks in an array of colors over a two-tone set of flooring. The kitchen and lengthy dining table add a dose of function. To the right, we see a large Keith Haring painting.
Viewed from the kitchen area, we see how the blocks can be rearranged into wildly different configurations. Here, they’re set up for optimal comfort while watching movies. The media wall contains numerous built-in shelves for display.
As seen here, the exterior sliding glass panels can be retracted to completely open the interior to the outdoors. This gives the space an extra element of versatility.
Moving down the hall from the large open room, we see more artwork and subtle bursts of color among the white walls and concrete flooring.
Just outside the Toy House, connecting with the main building, is the large steel staircase. Below we see the bright yellow slide, adding an element of playfulness and whimsy to the trip between the structures.
Here’s a look at the bright red rope bridge between the Toy House and the main home building. This offers an incredibly playful conveyance between the structures, and a striking contrast to the white exterior color.
Here’s the view of the Toy House from the main home structure, across the rope bridge. Smoothly curved corners help accent the sleekly modern design.
Here we see the stairs and bridge between the two buildings from inside the large open space room. Subtle accents like natural wood planks and an aquatic wall painting speak volumes.
Here are the concrete stairs leading to the upper level of the Toy House. Between these white walls, we can see the bursts of color, courtesy of various art pieces, on the pillars above.
The bathroom in the Toy House doubles down on the sleek, modern, and white look with a textural floor and micro tile wall near the shower functions.
On the upper level, we see one of several totem-like columns with art pieces wrapped around. This acts as a visual divide between spaces, framing the exterior glass panels.
The living room on this floor features an idiosyncratic, polygonal shelving wall dotted with bright primary colors. To the right is the distinctive “Lego” wall, with built-in shelving for hundreds of toys.
Viewed from outside, we can see how the retractible glass panels fully open to connect the indoors and outside. Built-in shades make the room a snap to privatize.
Viewed from a high angle, we see how the utterly open design of this structure makes for a more playful interaction with the surrounding landscape. The patio flooring
With a wide exterior view, we can see many of the colorful artworks adorning the Toy House, enlivening the white facade with personality and color. Here, we can see the full length awning that can be pulled down to shade the structure.
With the awning fully extended, this area becomes a perfectly comfortable and protected outdoor space to relax in.
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