area 114 | São Paulo

architect: Andrade Morettin Arquitetos

location: São Paulo

year: 2010

This apartment building is located in a central district of the city of Sao Paulo, close to various urban amenities, such as shops and services. Therefore, it was designed as a building without common areas, or collective activities on the site, such as fitness studios, party rooms etc., very common in most residential buildings in the city. In this case the common space is the city itself, its squares, its events. Imagine a building delicately inserted into the urban lot, with a height of nine floors and a broad setback at street level. The garden at the entrance to the site serves as a breathing space for both the building and the street, apart from creating a highly recognizable entrance situation, with the inclined planes that define the garden and the access ramp to the hall of the building. The building is the result of the configuration of twelve autonomous units, each one with its specific morphology. There are apartments with double floor-toceiling height, apartments that open themselves to the gardens of the ground floor, and others that use the space on the roof as a solarium. Still, we worked hard in order to turn the combination of these units of different characteristics into an interesting shape. To this end there is a number of voids organizing the building‘s volume. Large balconies serve as true garden porches of the apartments, cracks cut the volume in order to bring natural light to the internal spaces. At the entrance, a pyramid-shaped void leads the visitor from the ramp to the main hall of the building.
The interior space of the apartments can be configured freely, according to the needs of the residents. The location of kitchens and bathrooms can be changed, spaces can be fully integrated or else divided into specific environments. The project was designed from the start with the purpose of creating flexible spaces, knowing that in large urban centers there is an increasing demand for architectures responding to the constant transformation of life styles.