How often is it that a client asks an architect to “design a duplex apartment around a pool”? Well, almost never. That is until someone approached Brazilian architect Fernanda Marques Arquitetos Associados with the unusual and theoretically impossible to accomplish brief; and as unlikely as it sounds, Fernanda Marques succeeded in placing a swimming pool at the heart of the duplex apartment in Villa Nova Conceição, a high end residential development in Sao Paulo.

Brazilian architect Fernanda Marques Villa Nova Conceição Sao Paulo Duplex is all about the Swimming Pool

How does one build a swimming pool into a Sao Paulo Duplex you ask? Well, Marques had a double-height living room canvas to play with, so it was a literal “fish tank concept” by designing an awe-inspiring glass enclosed swimming pool into the side of the apartment, and using reinforced glass (an 8 cm thick high tech structural membrane actually) to allow views of the pool from inside the living area.

The entire Villa Nova Conceição Sao Paulo Duplex gave her 477 sq m to play with and the 10m-long pool takes up 25 sq m of the outside area, accessible either from the garden or the gym on level two.

The importance of the swimming pool as both a functional and artistic feature becomes readily apparent when one takes note of the doubled-sided sofa in the centre of the living room, sandwiched between the media centre (a wall mounted flat-screen TV) and expansive views of the pool via two glass panels.

The client’s artistic proclivities were on full display as well. The client’s collection of mostly Brazilian artworks by Ernesto Neto, Edgard de Souza, Manoel Rio Branco, Zerbini and Tunga are thoughtfully placed around the exquisitely furnished Villa Nova Conceição Sao Paulo Duplex.

Secondary to the pool is the lush vertical plant walls hiding the exterior walls, while it does make the already limited outdoor space a little more limited, it blends well with architect Fernanda Marques’s choice of natural wood furnishings from other Brazilian designers Joaquim Tenreiro and Zanine de Caldas, bequeathing the designer duplex apartment with a verdant luxurious feel: Case in point: Views from the bath area are extravagantly green with the nice foliage, imagine when light rainfall encourages a waterfall cascade down the wall of pots.

For more information, contact: Brazilian architect Fernanda Marques