ALMOST DAILY VLOG

construction financing Building team This text is part of Tetéia’s Building Journal — documenting the process of building a house on the Maraú Peninsula, Bahia. After understanding the limits — and what was required to get the project approved — as we shared in the previous texts, what emerges is not clarity, but a new layer of questions. Much of what defines building with a Caixa construction loan in Brazil is only understood in practice — as became clear when certain condit

when the project meets reality Construction loan This text is part of Tetéia’s Building Journal — an ongoing series documenting the process of building a house on the Maraú Peninsula, in Bahia, Brazil, between design, territory, and everything that escapes planning. There’s a common idea about building a house: that it starts with the design. In our case, not exactly. It started with a project that fit within our financial reality. Tetéia is being built with a combination of

Regina understood what worked in Maraú — materials, suppliers, construction methods suited to humid coastal Bahia. From the beginning, the house needed to fit the land. Zoning required 60% permeable ground. Beyond regulation, we wanted to preserve native vegetation. The region is part of an estuary ecosystem — fragile and pressured. Building a sustainable coastal house was not aesthetic. It was technical. Drainage, airflow, soil behavior, rainfall patterns. Within budget and

In my delusions, I wanted a tropical modernist house in Maraú. Flat roof, sharp lines, glass everywhere, perfectly calculated brise-soleils. That clean Pinterest aesthetic — tropical modernist house goals . It felt entirely possible. Until the climate joined the conversation. Here it rains vertically, horizontally, and — at times — metaphysically. Yes, we could have done it. But it wasn’t worth the emotional cost of trusting a heroic gutter system. Against water, we have very

Cats, chaos and raul: "Try Again"- as Brazilian rock legend Raul Seixas would say. Neni Nenê and Fruki Mozão We were living in 36 square meters. Two cats. One room serving as office, studio, storage, and bedroom. In the effort to stay optimistic, living across from the local bar turned out to be strategic. We built relationships with people who had lived there long before the region became even remotely “trendy.” Those connections brought construction advice and, more importa

Finding the contractor became a saga. Photo: Reproduced from Carlos Alberto Maier Building in Algodões required someone who understood sandy soil, high humidity, protected vegetation, lateral rain, and the reality of transporting materials via BR-030 — a challenging road that defines logistics in the region. That was how we met Alcinei. He showed us previous projects. When building outside major cities, references matter more than Pinterest. His work was solid and practical.

Square meters and reality. We arrived in Maraú with a dream, a full architectural project, and a rented car. In our optimistic timeline, we would move in within a year. The original design had two floors and over 300 square meters. That was when we understood the real cost of building in coastal Bahia. Sandy soil. High groundwater. Difficult logistics. Limited transport. Costs doubling quickly. And as we began living there, it became clear the house was too aggressive for the

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.

Bacurau Is Here and Now. Tetéia Is Coming. It was all blueprints and wild vegetation. In this photo, from left to right: Rodris, Regina, and Alcinei. This is the first entry of the Almost Daily — and as the name suggests, it won’t be daily. Nor will it be linear. A lot had already happened. Building a house in the middle of the woods, near the sea, in a village of just over 600 people, is quite an undertaking — especially if you are coming from São Paulo, where human time and