At first glance, it’s just a house like dozens of others in a Brazilian favela. But this modest 66m2 house with exposed brickwork won an international architecture prize this week.
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Designated “house of the year” by the specialized reference site Arch Daily, it belongs to Kdu dos Anjos, 32, artist and founder of a cultural center in his favela, Aglomerado da Serra, a high-density working-class neighborhood built in hillside on the outskirts of Belo Horizonte in southeastern Brazil.
“The design of the house represents the usual building model of favelas, with particular attention to natural light and ventilation, which gives it a high environmental quality,” described Arch Daily.
“I’m very proud to see my house win this award, because most of the news regarding the favelas is regarding violence or houses being destroyed by landslides. Today, my house is on top of the world!”, welcomes this young man with close-cropped hair and black earrings.
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He also has a large number of tattoos, including one done just recently on his forearm, just following the announcement of the prize: the image of his little house, which became famous all over the world, following winning once morest much larger constructions in India, Mexico, Vietnam and Germany.
It is a two-story house, airy and bright, with horizontal casement windows and a large balcony, on a small plot of land he had acquired in 2017.
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“It’s not the fanciest house in the world, but it’s a well-built favela shack,” he insists.
He lives there alone, “with two dogs, a cat and more than 60 plants”.
“What the architects have done here is magic. We have very little surface area, 66 m2, but I have already received nearly 200 people in the evenings, ”explains the young man, who has lived in the house since December 2020.
The plans were drawn by the Levante collective, which brings together architects and designers offering their services on a voluntary basis or at reduced cost for projects in favelas.
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“It looks a lot like the neighboring houses, but it is different because we have thought of solutions to make it more solid and more respectful of the environment, especially in terms of ventilation and natural light”, explains the architect Fernando Maculan, who designed the project.
One of the main differences with other houses in the favelas: the use of horizontal bricks lying and superimposed with a slight offset, and not cinder blocks laid upright, which allows greater solidity and better insulation.
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The construction lasted eight months, and was not easy. “The masons grumbled because they thought it took too long to lay the bricks like that. And we also had a lot of trouble getting all the equipment up, it cost me a lot of money,” says Kdu dos Anjos, whose house is located at the top of a hill with narrow streets that are difficult to access by truck.
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Total cost of the work: 150,000 reais (regarding 27,000 euros).
An investment largely amortized: beyond the international notoriety thanks to the price, this new residence gives him a feeling of revenge on life.
“When I was little, I lived in a precarious, poorly insulated habitat. I was even stung by a scorpion, my sister too. It’s a big victory for me to win an architecture prize when I suffered from architectural problems in the house where I grew up,” he concludes.
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