A couple of years ago, when I was shopping for a new couch, I spent an hour or so a day, every day, for weeks, until I found the right one, on Facebook Marketplace. It took another week or two to pester the seller enough to actually meet me, and then a day to figure out the logistics of moving a couch when you drive a Fiat. “When I was buying stuff, I organized my life around it. I would borrow people’s cars, and that’s how I’d spend my days off,” says Sami Reiss, a Dwell contributor who runs the excellent newsletter SNAKE, which scours the internet for interesting furniture and home goods for sale or on auction. Reiss says Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace also constituted a large part of his furniture education. “It was almost like liner notes in an album or something,” he says. “You’re like, oh, wow, the guy selling the Chiclet chair says it’s like Kartell. And you think ‘Hey, what’s Kartell?’ And then you look it up.”

In addition to being an educational source, Facebook Marketplace is a messy and anarchic vision of e-commerce. It is accessible through a tab within Facebook, though sometimes it will try to get you to download Messenger, a separate app, to communicate with sellers or buyers. It includes sponsored listings which may or may not have anything to do with terms you’ve searched for, and which range from petroleum-based underwear from Temu to just, like, a link to Ikea’s Lack coffee table’s page. You can purchase some items directly from Marketplace and have them shipped to you, either from a corporation or a person. But most people use it as a local consumer-to-consumer listing: a classified ad.

Facebook Marketplace has somewhere over a billion active users, and Business Dasher reports that around 474 million log into Facebook solely for Marketplace, though it’s not clear exactly how they came to that number. (Does it count if you scroll through the main feed for 15 seconds and Marketplace for an hour?) Because it relies mostly on local transactions, it is invaluable for home goods. It enables you to go see, touch, and (importantly) smell furniture before you buy it. You can sit on it! You can see what the color is like outside the studio lighting! You don’t have to wait for shipping, which for furniture and appliances can often stretch out for weeks or even months. And you can search for, and create alerts for, what you actually want, rather than relying on one of the six couches at the local thrift store being exactly what you’re looking for. For bargain hunters, reuse advocates, or those who simply know what they want (and it’s not an Instagram couch), Marketplace is one of the most vital resources online.

It’s not just garage sale leftovers, it’s how people sell cars, designer goods, and (at least here in Los Angeles) a large variety of creatively shaped avocados from their trees. And yet it stinks! How did this happen?

As a modern evolution of the classified ad, Facebook Marketplace takes a relatively simple concept (I would like to sell, buy, rent, work, or hire; please contact me if interested) and pushes it through a Play-Doh extrusion hole of market pressures and general Facebook weirdness. Like Mark Zuckerberg after a meeting with his stylist, it comes out the other side recognizable, but altered in sometimes inscrutable ways.

The basic classified ad is some kind of short advertisement of a product or service. You could view guitar-teaching lessons nailed to telephone poles in this category as well, and that sort of posting likely goes back as far as writing systems do; announcements scrawled on walls, that kind of thing. According to Strange Red Cow, a history of classified ads written by Sara Bader, the first newspaper classified ads began appearing in the 17th century in England. The first in the United States, or rather the Province of Massachusetts Bay, as it was called at the time, was in the 1704 Boston News-Letter, and was, appropriately enough, a classified ad about classified ads. The lister wrote (SIC, as best I can):

“This News Letter is to be continued Weekly; and all Persons who have any Houses, Lands, Tenements, Farmes, Ships Vessels, Goods, Wares or Merchandizes,&c. to be Sold, or Lett; or Servants Run away; or Goods Stoll or Lost, may have the fame Inserted at a Reasonable Rate; from Twelve Pence to Five Shillings and not to exceed.”

Initially, some newspapers chafed at the idea of advertising of any sort in their product, seeing it as potentially cheapening or inappropriate, but the concept soon proved far too lucrative to deny. Classified ads were a massive part of how newspapers made money; in 2000, they made up around 40 percent of the average newspaper’s revenue. A decade later, that was down to 18 percent, courtesy largely of Craig Newmark and Craigslist. Craigslist operates with a quaint 1990s tech-utopian worldview, with the current CEO repeatedly voicing that he views the platform as a public good and that the company has actively chosen not to maximize profit. It hasn’t really changed its layout in decades, it retains a small staff, it shows no interest in expanding beyond its core product, and it makes far less money than it probably could. (Craigslist’s revenue comes from charging a small fee for job listings; that’s about it.)

It’s in the best interest of the classified ad provider to maintain a clear, useful system in which goods and services are exchanged, so that users and customers—who are, in their case, the same thing—are encouraged to return and purchase more ads, which provide more value for more customers, and the cycle continues.

 I would never have Facebook on my phone if not for Marketplace. They won! 

Facebook Marketplace, which launched in late 2016, is the first classified ads system that discards that framework. On Marketplace, as in the rest of Meta’s properties, customers and users are not the same: users are the people posting, buying, and selling, but the customers are advertisers. Meta’s challenge lies in the balancing of retaining those using Marketplace to buy and sell local items without losing what makes Marketplace valuable to the advertisers which actually pay the bills.

Marketplace has a few advantages over past versions of classified ads. It has a gigantic reach, thanks to the near-ubiquity of Facebook accounts. But activity on the platform overall is decreasing. According to a recent ExpressVPN survey, nearly a quarter of those surveyed in the U.S. either deactivated their account or have one but rarely use it, a number even higher in France and Germany. For many users—about 18 percent in the U.S., per that survey—accounts often linger on, semi-forgotten, like the T-shirt that stays at the bottom of your drawer that you do laundry to avoid wearing because it’s two sizes too small. This also makes it exceedingly easy to post listings. You probably already have an account or, maybe even the app on your phone already.

Marketplace is also free to use, with a couple of niche exceptions most users won’t encounter. It has rapidly increased in size and reach, now easily outpacing Craigslist. According to Statista, Craigslist has about 142 million monthly active users, compared to Marketplace’s aforementioned billion-plus. In terms of safety, this sort of local consumer-to-consumer exchange has long been a topic of terror for local news (“Instead of a half-price Vitamix, the seller opened the door holding a BIG GUN”) which Meta says they can mitigate by linking seller profiles to actual human profiles, though this doesn’t prevent sellers who include little identifying information, listings with inaccurate or misleading information, or profiles that aren’t real at all. Meta itself says it shut down about 1.4 billion fake accounts between October and December of 2024. (That also hasn’t stopped those local news reports.)

Meta also says that Marketplace is a tool for meeting people and forming community connections. That’s unusual in a world where we purchase beds and couches on our phones without having ever touched them.

Marketplace is also highly unprofessional. When you list something on eBay, Poshmark, or Depop, it finds the exact product line and name of your item, suggests appropriate prices based on past transactions, and fills out fields like size, weight, and age. Facebook Marketplace offers none of that. This means that the platform is mostly full of people’s garbage—but it’s one of the last places online where you can really find a bargain. “You could find, like, an original Corbusier LC2 chair for like five bucks,” says Reiss. “Your business model can’t be dependent on that, of course. But if you go on Facebook Marketplace enough, you might find it within a couple years.”

We don’t know what Meta is trying to do with Marketplace, only what it’s already done.

Marketplace’s value to Facebook is not directly financial. The only exception: Meta charges a 10 percent fee on the purchase price of shipped Marketplace items only, which go through the company’s own payment system, but this is a very low percentage of the total commerce conducted on Marketplace. There are no seller fees, which is where eBay makes its money; even advertisements are not separated from Facebook’s main feed, meaning that you can’t purchase an ad only for Marketplace.

Given how little direct financial benefit for the company comes from Marketplace, we have to look a little more obliquely to figure out why it exists at all. Meta’s goal is to get users on the site. As users spend decreasing amounts of time (reportedly 20 percent less than five years ago) on Facebook, and in decreasing numbers, Meta can keep their active user statistics high with Marketplace. Theoretically, users might also spend more time on Facebook’s main social media product, since they’re already on the site. (Meta did not provide much help when it came to this line of questioning.) This is perhaps why Facebook hasn’t spun Marketplace out into its own product the way they’ve done with Messenger. In addition to the active user count boost, of course, users spending time on the site allows Facebook to accumulate massive amounts of shopping and demographic data, which can then be used to sell ads.

Facebook can also use Marketplace as part of its narrative of connecting people to build communities and make the world a better place. Though it’s fundamentally different from Craigslist in many ways, this story feels just as quaint as Craigslist’s ethos of making a resource free and available for all. 

We don’t know what Meta is trying to do with Marketplace, only what it’s already done. The fact that it hasn’t been spun out indicates that it has value to Facebook. We know that it’s an essential service and growing rapidly. We also know that the user experience is not optimized to facilitate efficient trade, and that alone means that it stinks to use.

Say you want a couch, in like-new condition, located within 20 miles of you, and priced at under $800. Now say you change that search to “gray couch.” All the filters reset, forcing you to spend time filling them out again. Unlike Craigslist or eBay or really anywhere, Marketplace does not support Boolean search terms, which allow you to, say, exclude all items in your gray couch search that have the word “leather” in them.

Results are similarly incompetent, sometimes showing products well outside your included search radius while burying ones that are right next door. “Results from outside your search” often include results that actually are well inside your search. Sponsored results, which look exactly like actual results, litter the page with nonsense. A search for “coffee table” gave me sponsored results from Temu for a weather-resistant, galvanized steel retaining wall and a large pillow with an anime character printed on it.

And yet this chaos is, to me at least, both charming and comforting. Through conscious effort, rank incompetence, or some combination of the two, Facebook has made something that I use constantly, despite having not used the Facebook social media app in five years or more. A CNBC report from early March spoke to many people, most of them young, who don’t use Facebook (either out of moral conviction or, more often, because Facebook is for old people) but who still use Marketplace. I have the app on my phone. I would never have Facebook on my phone if not for Marketplace. They won! 

And yet this begs some hard questions about the future of this product. We know that Facebook’s user base is older, and that each younger generation uses it less and less. Research firms have speculated that Instagram already produces more than half of Meta’s revenue as Facebook’s impact continues to shrink. Yet it’s clear that of those who use Facebook, Marketplace is a bigger pull for Gen Z than it is for Gen X or Boomers. Modern resale and hustle culture, budget awareness, lack of disposable income, some desire for reuse, whatever it is, younger people are using Marketplace. I suspect that a significant portion of the 32 percent of American teens who use Facebook are using it exclusively or almost exclusively for Marketplace. (Facebook would not provide figures for this.) Teens have always loved to thrift, and Gen Z is no different. Marketplace, like Groups, is a side feature that may have to become the main product.

This leaves Facebook on unsteady ground. If Marketplace truly is a loss leader, Charles Lindsey, a professor of marketing at the University at Buffalo, says it’s very unlikely that it can be turned profitable. “After five, ten, fifteen, twenty years, we might need to monetize it because the other areas of the business aren’t fundamentally sound anymore,” he says. Facebook does have its other properties like Instagram (which does a fair amount of e-commerce itself) and Whatsapp. But if Marketplace doesn’t provide enough value why would Meta continue to support it? Would it be spun off into its own property with its own ad sales team? Shut down entirely? Folded into Instagram in some way? How does this jibe with Meta’s stated goal of creating AI profiles on Facebook? Can you, in the physical world we occupy, purchase and pick up a wobbly-legged coffee table from a bot?

If Marketplace does suffer in some way, getting shut down or dismantled or changed to something unusable, consumers will have a familiar problem. Marketplace grew incredibly quickly and boxed out its competitors by, at least in part, not needing to directly make money. When the time comes that it does have to make money, well, Uber is a few years ahead of them in this process and just now started posting a profit (though it’s much less than expected, and the company still owes at least ten times that amount in debt). And yet Marketplace, for all its issues, is great and weird and messy. It’s also a type of market that I think needs to exist, a fundamental internet utility. “It’s just like a garage sale,” says Reiss. “Most of the stuff there is always going to be bad, but all you need is one win in a blue moon to keep it worth it.”

Related Reading:

How to Navigate the Wild World of Facebook Marketplace

The Magic of the DesignMyRoom SubReddit

Starting over is a tedious, character-building process, a lesson that artist Thomas Rodehuth has had to relearn again and again in the nine years since he moved to the States from Cologne, Germany. His most recent reset was spurred by the dissolution of his marriage, which left him without a place to live in the summer of 2023. 

He spent the next eight months crisscrossing Los Angeles on dog and cat sitting jobs—”a month here, two weeks here, four weeks there,” he recalls of this transient period—before finally landing upon a quirky basement-level property on a dead-end street near MacArthur Park.

The interiors were dark and empty, covered up by dingy yellow curtains, and there was a “damp towel” smell permeating the place which Thomas was never able to fully get rid of—even with a Flamingo Estate tomato candle burning all the time. 

But he was charmed, not repelled by the peculiarity of the place. “I immediately fell in love with it because it was weird and very funky,” he says. Part of its offbeat appeal was due to its layout, which has a small, lofted nook where Thomas would sleep right off the open living area, accessible by a narrow trail of tile steps. 

Location: 307 South Chadwick Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Price: $3,300,000

Year Built: 1895

Renovation Dates: 1953 – 2003

Renovation Architect: Frank Weise

Footprint: 2,698 square feet (3 bedrooms, 1.5 baths)

From the Agent: “Experience a unique opportunity to own a piece of Philadelphia’s architectural heritage at 307 S. Chadwick Street. This historically designated home, reimagined by architect Frank Weise between 1954 and 2003, exemplifies midcentury-modern and postmodern design. Upon his death, the building was completely restored, updated and maintained by his heirs. The central brick section showcases rationalist elements, while the prominent batten-seam, terne-metal mansard (replaced in copper in 2005) introduces a bold, postmodern touch. A deeply projecting metal cornice adds a distinctive flair, and even functional features, like the furniture hoisting boom, are thoughtfully incorporated. Configured as a duplex, the property features Frank Weise’s studio/offices on the lower levels, while the upper floors, accessible via a private entrance, comprise the main residence. In total, the property offers three bedrooms and one and a half bathrooms. A one-car carport adds convenience in this central location.”

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Dilbeek, Belgium

Architect: Madam Architectuur / @madamarchitectuur

Footprint: 2,583 square feet

Structural Engineer: Paridaens

Landscape Design: Frederik Cassiman

Photographer: Olmo Peeters / @oooolmoooo

From the Architect: “Sofie is a house full of character, located in Dilbeek, Belgium, in a very green environment. The house needed to be completely renovated but also partly extended. There were many beautiful elements present that we wanted to preserve: wooden floors, moldings, decorative wooden elements around windows and doors, and stairs—but above all we wanted to restore the existing volume.

“Madam chose to create an extension on the north side relative to the house to allow east and west sunlight to enter the home. That side also offers the best view to the fields in front and the garden in the back.

“Both the extension and the terrace are constructed using a green pigmented polished concrete, so inside and outside appear literally flow into each other. In terms of materiality, the existing house is very austere, identical to its former condition. The extension is clad in glazed green tiles for a captivating contrast between existing and new. Inside the house there is an interconnection of smaller spaces, resulting in cozy places with their own character, different views, varying light, and distinct atmospheres.”

Welcome to How They Pulled It Off, where we take a close look at one particularly challenging aspect of a home design and get the nitty-gritty details about how it became a reality.

When a Washington, D.C. couple with four small children approached Cedar Architecture about designing a passive home, architect Deborah Buelow knew that her first job would be to orient the house towards sunlight. She quickly realized that sighting the house towards the sun might mean putting the largest windows in public view—which neither she nor the family wanted—so Buelow created an eye-catching, sun-catching workaround.

“We ended up turning the house inward and backward a bit,” Buelow explains. “That way, we could bring in the southern sun through a central stairwell.” The home has two main levels plus a basement, and the wide, open stairwell allows sunlight to reach all three floors. “We were really trying to bring light deep in,” she says.

The stairwell also unifies the home while dividing the space into its different functions—the downstairs living area, the upstairs sleeping area and so on. However, the clients were concerned that their little ones might not be safe around the stairs.

“There was a certain amount of insecurity about the handrails being insufficient,” Buelow says. “This was more of a mental issue. The handrail would keep them safe, but psychologically they felt like it might not.”

Many of us have felt nervous climbing a wide, open staircase, and Buelow knew it was her job to make everyone who spent time in this home feel as comfortable as possible. When the owners suggested working with Treenet Collective to build a net that could hang within the staircase and break a fall, Buelow was ready to start collaborating.

“I thought it was brilliant,” she said. “We had this high-end architecture, but we were also building a family home. We wanted an element that could engage the kids on a humane scale.”

Treenet Collective worked in the space for a week and a half. They took the homeowners’ idea of building a colorful net and expanded it into what became a rainbow whirl—or, as it’s now called, the “Rainbow Tornado.” The piece is sculptural, colorful, and dynamic. It also provides the necessary psychological relief to anyone climbing up or down the stairs. 

How they pulled it off: A home that provides peace of mind for parents and children

• The stairwell was partially under construction when the homeowners became concerned about the possibility of someone falling over the railing. Cedar Architecture solved this problem by raising the railing from a standard 36″ to a full 42″ high, but by that point the idea of the net had already been proposed. Buelow understood that the net could serve as both an additional layer of safety and a fun design element, so she decided to explore the possibilities.

• The homeowners initially wanted Treenet Collective to create a climbable net that the children could play on. The architects considered this but ultimately decided that a functional net wouldn’t be feasible, and Treenet Collective was brought in to create an art piece instead.

• The Rainbow Tornado was constructed out of a thinner version of the paracord that is used for rock climbing. The space it was designed to cover is 16’ high and 30″ wide, but the structure itself only spans from the first floor to the second, making it 11’ high. The gaps between paracord elements are variable, but the anchors were placed approximately 2 ½” apart. This makes the netting fairly compact and ensures that very little can fall through.

“We are a collaborative design firm and love working with other design-oriented thinkers to come up with solutions,” Buelow explains. “The Treenet Collective approached the project in the same way. By the time they came on board, we had already decided it wasn’t possible to do a net, so they knew they were coming in to do something a little different than they normally do.”

Thinking carefully about peace of mind may also generate some unexpected benefits. The Rainbow Tornado has never had to break a human’s fall, but it has caught a toy or two that might otherwise have tumbled to the basement. Most importantly, it’s brought joy to the entire family by helping them live more comfortably in their space.

As Buelow explains, it, “A home is a safety net.”

Project Credits

Architect: Cedar Architecture
Builder: Thorsen Construction
Interior Decorator: Madigan Schuler
Net: Treenet Collective
Passive House Consultant: Peabody-Fine Architects
Passive House Rater: Chris Conway
Structural Engineer: APAC Engineering
M/E/P Engineer: MaGrann Associates
Civil: RC Fields
Geotechnical: Geotech Engineers 

Related Reading:

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How They Pulled It Off: A Secret Stair Hatch That Seals Off the Living Space

While spring is associated with the first gentle drops of April rain or a delicate garden full of fresh flowers, this year’s trends are leaning towards something a bit richer. Instead of the usual soft pastels, we’re seeing textiles embrace deeper, more grounding tones—bringing nature indoors in a bold new way.

Perennials is leading this rich retreat back to nature with their new Down to Earth collection, featuring six new fabrics, four new rug offerings, and nine new wallcovering designs—all of which take the warmth and tranquility of the outdoors and bring them in. They are also introducing a new signature colorway called Fearless Green, which captures the beauty and strength of nature all the way down to its name.

For over 25 years, Perennials has been a pioneer in luxurious, 100 percent solution-dyed acrylic fabrics, renowned for their timeless durability in even the harshest outdoor elements. It’s this striking balance of practicality-meets-pattern that infuses an earthy elegance into every piece they make. 

In the Down to Earth collection, it’s all about earthy tones and retro vibes, as seen in the six new fabric offerings: Shadow Stripe, a fresh take on gingham; Two Step, with a cozy brush-pill texture; Common Ground, a light waffle knit; Comfort Zone, a perfectly chunky basket weave; Fresh Air, with delicate stitching and a tonal pinstripe; and Sheer Joy, which brings a slight shimmer that flecks in the light.

The four new rugs in the collection are equally unique, all taking cues from the natural world without resorting to cookie-cutter motifs: In Bloom is a whimsical watercolor design featuring light florals (with a matching wallpaper to complete the look); Call of the Wild is a double shag rug with a little edge to it; Natural High is a plush Tibetan knot design that gives you the illusion of a grand marble floor; and Story Lines offers a heavyweight take on the classic plaid.

Houses We Love: Every day we feature a remarkable space submitted by our community of architects, designers, builders, and homeowners. Have one to share? Post it here.

Project Details:

Location: Kamakura, Japan

Architect: Yuji Okitsu / @yujiokitsu

Footprint: 721 square feet

Builder: Deguchitateguten CO.,Ltd

Landscape Design: Art Base Garden Obaen

Photographer: Satoshi Nagare

Photographer: Yuji Okitsu

From the Architect: “This project transforms a 90-year-old house on the edge of a hillside in Kamakura, Japan, into an atelier. It is a new annex to the main house where the clients spend most of their time. They wanted a space to invite artists and culinary experts and enjoy creative time together or entertain their friends.

“The building is situated on a flat site in the middle of a steep cliff, characteristic of Kamakura, with just enough space for a single house. When we were first called to the site, the floors, walls, ceilings, and equipment of the house had all been removed, leaving only its framework, with its original layout unrecognizable. The old wooden pillars interspersed with the surrounding trees, and sunlight and the rock surface peeked through the spaces between them, creating a space that coincidentally blended architecture and the environment.

“In renovating the building, we did not paint the exposed parts of the repaired and reinforced framework to match the color of the existing and new wood. Out of respect for the building, which has stood the test of time despite being left unoccupied for many years, we wanted the house to symbolize the coexistence of old and new and its permanence. We tried to preserve the materials that sustained the building and pass them on to the next generation by repairing the existing window frames, which give a sense of the building’s identity, and reusing the foundation stones, which have supported the building for many years.

“We selected materials that would age well, such as yakisugi on the exterior walls and the brass door knobs. Solid chestnut wood flooring that had been used in the client’s previous home and stored away for many years was also incorporated, as were antique window frames that they already owned.

“In the new floor plan, the first floor mainly consists of the atelier, kitchen, and dining room. The location of the stairwell and the difference in ceiling height create a space without dead ends, allowing one to circulate freely. The floor-level low windows, called muso-mado (traditional Japanese windows fitted with panels with vertical slats that can be opened and closed for ventilation), were installed in the second floor room that opened to the first floor atelier. By opening and closing the panels, the atmosphere, sounds, and warm air from the wood stove are transmitted to the upstairs, making the whole building feel like a spacious, open-plan room.

“The concrete deck in the garden was designed to form a thin layer of water when it rains. While it rains, ripples spread across the rectangular deck, and the moving patterns created by nature are reflected upon the architecture. After the rain, it becomes a transient water basin, and the trees’ reflections and natural light reveal a fusion of landscape and architecture.

“In renovating the old house, we made sure to preserve the passage of time recorded in the land and architecture and pass it on to the future. We aimed to create a building that combines a sense of balance between old and new, integration with the landscape, and an affinity with the environment.”

Location: L’Escala, Spain

Price: €1,200,000 (approximately $1,382,460 USD)

Year Built: 2019

Architect: Bellafilarquitectes Studio

Footprint: 1,894 square feet (3 bedrooms, 2 baths)

From the Agent: “This unique, single-story villa is located in L’Escala, Spain, steps away from the beach and the renowned Roman-Greek ruins. Nestled on a quiet street, the property offers a tranquil setting close to the sea and essential services. Designed in 2019 by Bellafilarquitectes Studio, the villa combines modern comfort with high-quality finishes, making it ideal for year-round living.

“The structure consists of textured reinforced concrete walls, nearly seven feet high, which support a roof made up of semicircular vaults that cantilever over the southern facade. The roof features green vitrified tiles manufactured in La Bisbal d’Empordà. The design is inspired by the surrounding natural beauty and the historic charm of Empúries, with an emphasis on maximizing natural light throughout the day. The house offers views of the surrounding pine forest, while also ensuring the privacy of its occupants.

“The entry leads to an inviting hall that flows into the heart of the home. The main living area is an open-plan space, combining the living and dining areas with direct access to the patios and garden. The house also features an independent kitchen. The house includes three bedrooms. The primary bedroom features an en suite bathroom and built-in wardrobes, while the other two bedrooms share a bathroom. All bedrooms open directly onto the patio and garden.”

Orlando Denardi and Arthur Machado had two requirements when they were looking for a new apartment in São Paulo: to be closer to their friends, and to find a unit with dedicated outdoor space. “That was the dream,” Orlando says.

At the time, they lived in a far-flung area, so socializing meant taking a taxi or a lot of trains—and they craved a connection to the outdoors, although they knew it was a big ask in a dense city of high-rise buildings. “We are piled up, and getting more piled up as time goes by,” says Arthur.

Fortunately, one of the couple’s hobbies is scrolling real estate listings, so only six months passed before they found a penthouse apartment in the Pinheiros neighborhood. The building—which neighbors call the Cenourão, or “big carrot”—was originally designed by architect Ary de Queiroz Barros in the early ’80s, and the couple explain that it was noteworthy for its focus on duplex apartments. 

In traditional penthouses, says Arthur, the terrace is located off the upper level and separated from the main living spaces, which are usually on the lower level. “Then you have to put in another half bath and kitchen upstairs to entertain,” says Arthur. The Cenourão penthouse plan is flipped, with the terrace off the lower-level living room. “In this case, the configuration is like a home,” adds Orlando. “The social areas are downstairs, with the outdoors.”

However, the rest of the floor plan suffered from tight, compartmentalized rooms, some with triangular corners and diagonal walls. “I took a while to see the potential, because it was very segmented,” says Arthur—but Orlando, being an architect, knew exactly how to proceed.

Before: Entry and Living Room

After: Entry and Living Room