Project Name: Iporanga House

Location: Guarujá, Brazil

Design Team: Nati Minas & Studio

Area: 750 m²

Year: 2026

Photography: Miti Sameshima

Design Features: Nestled within a protected stretch of Brazil's Atlantic Forest, Casa Iporanga is a masterful renovation by São Paulo-based practice Nati Minas & Studio that transforms an existing modernist beach house into a precision-tuned retreat for contemporary living. Completed in 2026 and located in Guarujá, the 750-square-metre residence demonstrates how sensitive intervention can deepen a building's relationship with its landscape rather than override it.

Rather than imposing a new architectural identity, the studio elected to refine what was already there, sharpening lines, clearing alignments, and cutting generous openings that draw the surrounding forest directly into the interior. A new canopy extending across the main façade is among the few volumetric additions, yet it quietly transforms the experience of arrival while protecting against the unpredictable coastal climate.

What distinguishes Casa Iporanga most is the way its programme is shaped entirely by the life of its inhabitants. The clients, an avid foiling family from São Paulo, required spaces that could absorb the rhythms of an active, water-sports-centred lifestyle. In response, the studio reconfigured the lower level into what they termed the foil cave, a purpose-built zone housing equipment, boards and wetsuits alongside a home theatre, office and games room. It is architecture as infrastructure for living, direct and unsentimentary.

On the upper floor, the social spaces were reorganised for ease and flexibility. Furniture from Dpot, Wentz and Carbono anchors a palette of light woods and natural stone, while a mirror above the dining sideboard captures the greenery outside, collapsing the boundary between inside and out. In the bedrooms, travertine, towelling upholstery and timber headboards layer warmth with a quietly nautical sensibility.

Casa Iporanga is a project of studied restraint, a house that serves its inhabitants completely, without ever announcing itself.

Design Team: Nati Minas & Studio is a São Paulo-based architecture, interior design, and scenography practice whose work is grounded in a singular design philosophy: that every project should be an accurate portrait of the people who inhabit it. Founded by Natalia Minas, an architect with over a decade of professional experience and more than eighty completed projects to her name, the studio operates across residential and commercial sectors, delivering a fully integrated service that encompasses spatial design, technical documentation, construction supervision, and furniture curation.

Minas holds dual academic credentials from Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie in São Paulo and Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, and has further pursued specialisation in circular economy through MIT Professional Education. In 2022, she was recognised on the Forbes Under 30 list in the Architecture, Design, and Urban Planning category, and received the Premio Sintonia from Casa & Jardim in 2024. The current project team includes Sayuri Oura, Kelly Daronco, Bia Melo, and Guilherme Costa.

The studio's methodology prioritises active listening as its primary design tool, translating the identity, routines, and aspirations of each client into spatial form. The result is an architecture that is neither retrospective nor trend-dependent, but responsive, forward-looking, and deeply personal. With each project concluded through a considered composition of objects, artworks, and planting, Nati Minas & Studio consistently delivers environments that are at once purposeful and inhabitable.