ABK House is a lovely urban residence located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, redesigned in 2018 by Bernardes Arquitetura.

Description
The original house, designed by modern architect Sergio Bernardes in 1960, was found in a precarious state. Like much of his works, the house was originally designed to allow much of its environmental control systems to be done passively using air cushions between roof and ceiling surfaces, and controllable brise soleils, among others. However, much of its original spatial and material features had been stripped out by either the careless displacement or the addition of certain elements.
The renovation aimed at reinvigorating the house?s original characteristics while updating its spaces, infrastructure, and energy performance. The house?s private areas were also expanded to accommodate the needs of the new residents. All wooden elements, from the staircase in the entrance to the brise-soleils, as well as their mechanical components, were restored to their original state and became fully functional again. The house?s structure and enclosing are rigorously modulated and built with prefabricated concrete components, some of which were found severely damaged. The roof, for example, was composed of concrete troughs that served as both structure and water-proofing elements, which presented numerous leaking points and high thermal transmittance rates. In order to update it and reach better thermal insulation indexes, it was replaced by ...