DAY 2: SLAB DAY IS BARBECUE DAY

The house program, capitalism, and the beginning of the soap opera.

Photo: @unakiki

Slab Day Is Barbecue Day.

The day you pour concrete, you grill meat and start drinking early. Cultural fact.

The behind-the-scenes celebration belongs to Instagram and TikTok — because only Brazilians understand the emotional magnitude of pouring a slab.

Here, the story was different: how Tetéia’s architectural concept came to life.

Architects call everything a house must contain its “program.” It is almost therapy. How do you live? What do you eat? How do you work? How do you sustain yourself in a place without malls, offices, or corporate infrastructure nearby?

When we moved to Algodões, that question was immediate: how do we make a living here?

Living purely on dreams works if you are an heir. I am not.

In the Península de Maraú, many houses operate as guest houses — part home, part hospitality income. That model was not revolutionary. What would make ours different was the intention: attracting guests aligned with art, territory, and what would become Tetéia.

Rodris is a visual artist. I ran a cultural production company. We did not want to disconnect from artistic networks in major cities. That is how the idea of an artist residency emerged.

We imagined a hybrid space — home, studio, gallery, gathering room, yoga hall, community cinema.

The sky was the limit.

The budget was not.

Local zoning required 60% of the land to remain permeable. Only 40% could be built upon. Rural land, no sewage infrastructure. Everything that entered the system had to return to the earth.

The financing defined our ceiling. The dream house exceeded it. If you’re interested in understanding how construction financing works in Brazil, you can find more details here based on our own experience.

The soap opera had officially begun.