CONSTRUCTION

What is the construction system?

The Apaulinha villas are built in reinforced concrete cast in situ using metal formwork (banches), producing structural concrete walls with high geometric precision. This is solid, monolithic construction — the walls are the structure.

The system begins in the ground: continuous reinforced-concrete foundations, sized to the geotechnical conditions of each villa's position on the undulating site. Above them, the banche technique — casting walls between reusable steel forms — yields the dimensional accuracy and surface quality that exposed concrete architecture demands.

The façades are where the system becomes visible. They are finished in exposed concrete with a "deactivated" (washed) finish, pigmented with sand: the surface layer is washed to reveal the aggregate, producing a durable mineral texture with high weather resistance. The building's skin is therefore not a coating applied to the structure — it is the structure itself, coloured in the register of the surrounding landscape. Sand, concrete, wood, light: the material palette is set at the moment of casting.

Around this concrete core, the envelope is completed with high-performance rigid roof insulation, treated thermal bridges, Fermacell interior insulation panels, hydraulic lime wall finishes and wooden exterior joinery treated for the local climate.

Why it matters: in-situ cast concrete is among the most durable ways to build a house — resistant to fire, insects, humidity and time, with none of the maintenance cycles of rendered or painted façades. A deactivated sand-pigmented surface never needs repainting; it simply weathers. For owners, the practical translation is a home whose structure and skin are engineered to require almost nothing of them for decades.