Casa Arca

Deep in the Mata Atlântica off the Paraty-Cunha road, this house rises from the forest floor like a vessel run aground among the trees, a form its architecture knowingly evokes. Designed by Atelier Marko Brajovic as one of eight houses within a wider eco village, the 110 square meter home draws its lines from Asurini indigenous design, its arched glass doors folding open so a private forest terrace becomes part of the living space itself.

Two bedrooms hold a pair of double futons and a single futon between them, sleeping up to six beneath a 42-inch screen stocked for slow afternoons, while the kitchen stands fully equipped and the table seats eight. Six yoga mats wait by the window for a morning practice before the heat sets in. Eighty meters down a footpath, a spring-fed natural pool collects beneath a small waterfall, a place to swim, take a massage under falling water, and watch blue morpho butterflies while listening for monkeys overhead.

The house runs on solar power backed by the grid, draws its water from a local spring, heats showers by gas, and stays connected through Starlink even this deep into the hills. Beyond its own terrace, guests move through more than thirty hectares of shared grounds bordering the Serra da Bocaina, laced with trails, agroforestry plots, a forest temple, a gym, and a sauna available by advance booking. It's architecture built to sit lightly within its setting, shaped around the rhythms of the forest around it.