To get to the Casa Seriema villa, located in the municipality of Brumadinho, from the eastern Brazilian metropolis of Belo Horizonte, you need to cross a mountain range, but the journey will only take an hour and a half.
Tetro Architects, who designed the house, consider this journey as a symbol of rejection of the hustle and bustle of the city, a path to silence and reunification with nature. Of course, there was no homage to the modernist traditions and the work of Oscar Niemeyer, for which Belo Horizonte is best known: in its Pampulha district, there is a Niemeyer entertainment complex, included in the World Heritage List since 2016.
The villa got its name in honor of a species of large land birds of the Cariamidae family, typical of South America – they freely walk around, making loud, shrill, barking sounds. The building is located on the edge of a dense forest and seems to be dissolved in nature. The clients asked the architects to create a space filled with poetry, ideal for warm gatherings with friends, leisurely reading and contemplation of nature.