We seem torn between the impulse to override our senses and numb ourselves impassively to our surroundings and the opposite impulse to recognize that to a large extent our identity is inextricably linked to and modified by the places in which we live. An ugly room can condense the suspicions we harbor about the incompleteness of life, while a sunlit room covered in honey-colored tiles can reinforce the hope we carry within. The belief in the importance of architecture is based on the idea that all of us, for better or worse, are different people in different places, and the belief that it is the job of architecture to give us a vivid image of what we could ideally be. In Canoas Oscar Nyemeyer's house, nature is not separate or artificial, but is free and is suggested in all places of shelter, as in the large granite pentration that enters the room from the garden, almost emerging from the earth. Our first xplaneroomsketch on Casa Da Canoas analyzes the relationship of this Rock with th...