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Brazilian designer Ana Sawaia has renovated a home in an iconic São Paulo apartment block, creating a more open layout filled with vintage furniture and colourful patterned surfaces. More
Plywood furniture and vibrant colours feature in the headquarters for one of Brazil’s major publishers, which has been overhauled by architecture office Studio Dlux. More
Brazilian studio Coletivo de Arquitetos has completed a Japanese restaurant in São Paulo’s Pinheiros neighbourhood, using traditional wood joinery techniques from Japan. More
Monolithic concrete columns and walnut panelling create a backdrop for an extensive collection of mid-20th century Brazilian art and design in this 1970s São Paulo apartment renovation by BC Arquitetos. More
Workspaces look upon a mini jungle in this 125-year-old brick building in Manaus, Brazil, which has been thoughtfully revitalised by design studio Laurent Troost Architectures.Called the Cassina Innovation House, the project entailed the adaptive reuse of a dilapidated historic structure in Manaus, the capital of the state of Amazonas.
Cassina Innovation House sits in a 125-year-old building
The building, which now serves as a co-working venue, is located in an emerging digital district within the city. Its name was selected through a public vote organized by the municipality, which owns the building.
Its original structure was constructed in the late 1890s to house the luxurious Hotel Cassina, owned by an Italian man named Andrea Cassina.
The building was abandoned and taken over by vegetation
After a financial crisis devastated the region, the building became a spot for gambling and prostitution called Cabaré Chinelo.
It closed around 1960 and began to deteriorate, according to local firm Laurent Troost Architectures.
Laurent Troost Architectures inserted a prefabricated steel structure
Over the decades, the interior crumbled and vegetation overtook the building, resulting in a striking visual image that the architect wanted to honour in some way.
Troost said that artists and designers have long been intrigued by ruins, citing figures such as Piranesi, Gordon Matts-Clark and Robert Smithson.
Greenery and exposed walls evoke the building’s crumbling grandeur
“The beauty of the ruin’s imperfection raises interest and questions, and invites reflection on the past and the action of time and man in the city – and on heritage buildings in general,” the architect said.
The team opted to preserve the building’s exterior brick walls, along with the remaining foundation walls made of stone. It decided to reconstruct the interior using a prefabricated steel system, and to add a glazed volume atop the roof.
The staircase is open to the sky
The building now totals 1,586 square metres, spread across four levels.
The facades were cleaned, and great care was taken to preserve original elements such as a plaster made of pigment from red sandstone powder. On the eastern elevation, new shading devices help mitigate solar heat gain.
Laurent Troost Architects folds weathered steel roof over concrete house in Brazilian Amazon
“The east facade, hit by the rising sun, has received contemporary frames with tempered glass fins to create a ventilated, double-skin facade that keeps the heat out,” the studio said.
Glazed walls overlook the gardens
Inside, the team used the steel system to form new floors and a stairwell, along with space for an elevator. The system stands independent from the building’s outer shell.
“We have basically constructed a squared tower with four new columns,” Troost told Dezeen. “The perimeter beams of our structure have allowed us to anchor the existing facades to avoid the collapse towards the street.”
There are a variety of co-working spaces available
The metal system was prefabricated off-site, which sped up the project timeline.
Moreover, it reduced the number of on-site construction workers, which helped with social distancing – an important factor given that Manaus was hit hard by the coronavirus, the studio said.
Greenery is visible through areas of glazing
A tropical garden was planted in a triple-height space just inside the front door.
“The building houses an exuberant garden behind the main facade, creating its very own microclimate,” the team said. “A walkway crosses the void over the garden, reminding one of Manaus’s intrinsic reason for being: the Amazon rainforest.”
There are desks and meeting rooms in the offices
Adjoining the stairs are open rooms with glazed walls that provide views of the interior garden. A range of flexible spaces can be found within the building, including work zones, meeting rooms and training areas.
The rooftop addition holds a restaurant with sweeping views of the city’s historic centre and the Rio Negro. Large roof overhangs clad in ipe wood – also known as Brazilian walnut – help shade the structure.
An overhanging roof shades the rooftop restaurant
The team noted that the building’s design allows for physical distancing and the circulation of fresh air, which will remain important considerations in our post-pandemic world.
Born in Brussels, Laurent Troost has worked in various countries and taught at several Brazilian universities.
Other projects by his studio include Casa Campinarana in Manaus, which won a 2019 Dezeen Award for Rural House of the Year. The concrete house features outdoor living areas and a swimming pool that are elevated above the forested surroundings.
Photography is by Joana França.
Project credits:
Contractor: Manaus MunicipalityArchitect-in-charge: Laurent TroostArchitecture team: Rejane Gaston, Juliana Leal, Nayara Mello, Erick Saraiva, Eloisa Serrão, Victor Marques, Marcelo Costa, Ingrid Maranhão, Eduardo Corrêa, Amanda Perreira, Fernanda Martins, Kauã MendesRestoration: Landa BernardoHistory consultants: Centro Cultural Reunidos, Fábio Augusto de Carvalho PedrosaArchaeology: Margaret Cerqueira, Vanessa BeneditoInteriors: Rejane Gaston, Juliana LealLighting: Juliana LealVisual communication: Elter BritoLandscape: Nayara Mello, Hana Eto GallConstruction: Biapó Constutora and MCA EngenhariaSteel structure: Marco Antônio de OliveiraConcrete structure: MPa Engenharia EstruturalHVAC: LR EngenhariaLightning protection system: Raimundo OnetyDatas CCTV electrical: Alah Emir VeronezHydraulics: Gerson Arantes Consultoria e EngenhariaFire protection system: Andrey Costa Barbosa
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A rounded polycarbonate-clad pink volume forms a consultation room in a dental office and laboratory in São Paulo designed by local firm SuperLimão.SouSmile is a dental health treatment centre in Pinheiros, a district on the west side of São Paulo, that manufactures dental appliances, such as clear aligners and teeth whitening technologies.
It is located in a warehouse building with tall ceilings that SuperLimão has converted into office space, a clinical room and a manufacturing lab.
For the design the local firm focused on SouSmile’s key messages of “efficiency, transparency, joy, self-esteem and care” and used hues of bright pink and light blue to match its colourful branding.
“Brand attributes were integrated to the architecture to convey SouSmile key messages, such as efficiency, transparency, joy, self-esteem and care,” the studio said. “The brand’s colour palette was also considered to be used in the project.”
On the exterior of the office the brick facade has been painted white with several bricks painted pink and blue to tie in with the brand’s marketing. A large awning with a foldable garage door is located at the front of the building along with a small patio area for employees and patrons.
The main intervention to the 500-square-metre building is a rounded volume that creates the consultation room and laboratories on the ground floor, and lounges and meeting rooms on the upper level that overlook the floor below.
Pink-painted metal framing is covered with translucent polycarbonate panelling to form the structure, which is furnished with a dental chair, equipment and a sink counter for clinical use.
The bright colour is also used on the staircase that leads to the upper level and to frame the windows on the manufacturing lab and meeting rooms.
The fabrication lab situated alongside the stairs is filled with machinery and shelves for testing and engineering the dental appliances. It is outfitted with mechanics and ventilation duct work to ensure proper air exhaustion during the manufacturing process.
At the front of the office a break area offers staff a comfortable space to relax with a kitchen area furnished with two stone counters for enjoying and preparing meals.
Pink pendant light fixtures and a set of shelves for storing glassware and decorative plants hang from the ceiling in the space.
Large wood tables form shared workspaces on both levels of the office. Meeting and conference rooms on the upper floor also feature brightly coloured walls painted yellow, blue and green.
A sculptural blue bleacher seating covered with cushions and a phone booth station outfitted with acoustic paneling are among the other architectural details in the office.
SuperLimão is an architecture studio with offices in São Paulo. It has completed a number of projects in Brazil, including an apartment with a pink ceiling and a beer hall with gabion walls.
Other thoughtfully-designed dental facilities include an office in Berlin that takes cues from the nightclub Berghain, an orthodontist practice in Quebec outfitted with slatted wood panels and a clinic in Taiwan with a dining table in its waiting room.
Photography is by Maíra Acayaba.
Project credits:
Architecture: SuperLimãoProject team: Thiago Rodrigues, Antonio Figueira de Mello, Lula Gouveia, Larissa Burke, Pamela PaffrathLighting design: LDArtiConstructor: EdifisaWorkstations, meeting tables and bleachers: Zero MáquinaWoodwork: KW MóveisPhone booth: HUB
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Creatives Charlotte Taylor and Nicholas Préaud took cues from the modernist architecture of Lina Bo Bardi to dream up these renderings of Casa Atibaia, an imaginary home that hides in a São Paulo forest.In a series of ultra-realistic renderings, the pair have envisioned Casa Atibaia to be nestled amongst the forested banks of the Atibaia river in São Paulo.
This is the first collaborative project between Préaud, who is co-founder of 3D visualisation practice Ni.acki, and Taylor, who runs Maison de Sable, a studio that works with a range of visual artists to create fictional spaces.
The imaginary home was informed by Casa de Vidro, or Glass House, which Italian-born Brazilian architect Lina Bo Bardi designed in 1951 for herself and her husband, writer and curator Pietro Maria Bardi.
Comprising a concrete and glass volume supported by slim pilotis, the house is considered a significant example of Brazilian modernism – an architectural movement that both Taylor and Préaud have come to admire during their careers.
“Lina Bo Bari has been a huge inspiration for the most part of my career,” Taylor told Dezeen.
“Discovering Nicholas had an equal passion and excitement towards Brazilian modernism was a perfect match, something we had to explore.”
“Having lived and studied architecture in Brazil, I was overwhelmed by the presence and national pride around modernist jewels such as Casa de Vidro or Casa das Canoas by Oscar Niemeyer,” continued Préaud.
“These homes have become landmarks not only for their style and modern construction methods at the time, but also because of the simplicity of the lifestyle they implemented.”
Like Bo Bardi’s Casa de Vidro, the imaginary Casa Atibaia features a white-concrete framework and expansive glass windows.
However, instead of pilotis, this house would instead be elevated by huge jagged boulders that jut out from the terrain below.
Taylor and Préaud’s creation would also be much more sinuous in shape – the river-facing elevation of winding inwards to form a courtyard around a cluster of existing palm trees.
This courtyard would help loosely separate the private and communal quarters of the home.
“Lina Bo Bardi’s Casa de Vidro was an inspiration mostly in terms of this ethereal feeling of a delicately suspended home… gentle curves, extended raw concrete slabs and a primal relationship with the elements are our tribute to Brazilian modernism,” the pair explained.
Some of the boulders propping up the home would pierce through the interior and be adapted into functional elements like bookcases, a bed headboard, or craggy plinths for displaying earth-tone vases.
Casa Plenaire is an imaginary holiday home for lockdown escapism
In the living room, a curving cream-coloured sofa is accompanied by a couple of sloping armchairs and a floor lamp with a concertina-fold shade.
Wooden high-back chairs surround the stone breakfast island in the adjacent kitchen.
The home would otherwise be dressed with a blend of contemporary and antique decorative pieces, ideally from the likes of French designers like Charlotte Perriand and Pierre Chapo.
“It would definitely be a dream home for us in another life,” added Taylor and Préaud.
“Casa Atibaia is a design experiment in which we combined both our impressions and aspirations of the ideal modernist jungle home,” the pair continued.
“Through this experiment we sought to squeeze out the essence of what Brazilian modernism means to us, blurring the boundaries between inside and out while maintaining a cosy, homey feeling.”
Charlotte Taylor was one of nine individuals to feature in Dezeen’s roundup of 3D designers, visualisers and image-makers.
She said the recent rise of dreamy renderings coming from the likes of her and Préaud may be down to the fact that, in light of the global coronavirus lockdowns, the appetite for escapism is “at an all-time high”.
Earlier this year, in response to the pandemic, Child Studio designed Casa Plenaire – a fictitious seaside villa where those stuck at home could imagine having the “perfect holiday”.
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Brazilian studio MNMA has designed a spiral concrete stair and folding polycarbonate doors in this botanical store, yoga classroom and restaurant in São Paulo.Dois Trópicos has a calming earthy palette featuring local materials and crafts that MNMA chose to complement the functions of the wellness hub.
“The concept of the project is a hybrid space, there is no determination or boundaries. We want a space that integrates gastronomy, the practice of yoga and botany,” MNMA explained. “Where people can feel in every way the importance of spending time in the chaotic city of Sao Paulo to take care of themselves, slowly and with pleasure.”
“A commercial space that creates a homelike hosting experience, using nostalgia and natural matter, crafted by artisan hands that desire to achieve not perfection but real environments,” it added.
Translucent polycarbonate doors set in aluminium frames front the exterior to contrast the earthy aesthetic, and allow natural light and cross-ventilation.
“By contrast, the facade is technological, drafted and executed with precision, thought to allow sun and wind in, to avoid artificial air conditioning systems,” the studio explained.
“The general purpose is to create a contemporary element that, when opened, would bring back some lost time of ancient forms of construction, a slow passing of time, an earthy place… it feels like ‘home’.” the studio continued.
Slender terracotta-coloured bricks made by local craftsmen cover the flooring and form structures for washbasins, while textured soil-based render is applied by hand to the walls throughout.
“We don’t use conventional paint to colour the walls, we literally use earth (like clay) to give this colour, the walls and ceilings are natural earth colours, we don’t use anything chemical,” MNMA said.
Cracked floors and weathered wood feature in minimal São Paulo shoe store
“The soil reacts allegorically to the sunlight movement along the day, turning walls, ceilings and the floor not into limits or boundaries, but into canvases for the light to express itself gradually in various forms,” it added. “As it is possible to enjoy comfortably great and authentic food, full of flavours.”
A spiral staircase at the entrance has a rendered banister and concrete treads with a marked underside that was built using leftover wood on the construction site. It leads up to an open studio space for yoga and massages.
“The shape was made with materials reused from demolition,” it explained. “The experience was more important than the performance of the technique, so the drawings that are usually super strict gave voice to the empiricism of the local artisans workers,” the studio added.
A circular door punctured in the rear wall to provides access to stairs that lead down to a restaurant on the lower level. Granite gravel is laid the floor of the outdoor areas to allow for drainage of water. A glazed roof partially covers the restaurant and bar – which is also made from the pale bricks.
Founded by André Pepato and Mariana Schmidt, MNMA has used a similarly pared-back aesthetic for a number of spaces in São Paulo. They include a retail space for Brazilian women’s clothing store Egrey and a store for shoe company Selo.
Photography is by Andre Klotz.
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